Rush v. Spokane Falls & Northern Railway Co.

Citations

• 23 Wash. 501
• 63 P. 500
• 1900 Wash. LEXIS 381

Syllabus

<p>ACTION FOR NEGLIGENCE — PLEADING-ALLEGATION OF SEVERAL ACTS OF NEGLIGENCE-EVIDENCE NOT RESTRICTED TO ONE.</p> <p>In an action to recover for injuries resulting from defendant’s negligence, .the failure of plaintiff to prove some of the acts of negligence charged in the complaint does not warrant the discharge of the jury and a directed verdict in favor of the defendant, when there are allegations in the complaint of other matters of negligence sufficient to warrant a verdict in plaintiff’s favor, and there is evidence to substantiate them.</p> <p>SAME-DEFECTIVE APPLIANCES-QUESTION FOR JURY.</p> <p>Whether a locomotive engine was defective in the matter of emitting sparks was a question for the jury, where the undisputed testimony showed “there were a lot of sparks flying all the time” from the engine; and from such fact alone, in the absence of any other known cause, the jury might be warranted in inferring that an explosion of dynamite exposed in an open caboose was occasioned by sparks therefrom, although no one saw a single spark come into the caboose.</p> <p>MASTER AND SERVANT — VICE PRINCIPAL-DANGEROUS EXPLOSIVES.</p> <p>Although employees of a common master may be fellow servants, when engaged in loading and unloading cars in the ordinary course of their employment, yet where one of them is made the custodian of dangerous instruments, such as dynamite, for the time being he represents the master, to whom is imputable any negligence on his part in that capacity.</p> <p>SAME-LIABILITY OF MASTER — INSTRUCTIONS.</p> <p>When one of the questions to he determined at a trial was whether the defendant was guilty of negligence in placing an uncovered box of dynamite in an open car, exposed to flying sparks from the engine, and the testimony shows that plaintiff, who was a servant of defendant and riding in the car, had no knowledge of the presence of the dynamite therein, an instruction is relevant to the pleadings and evidence, when it charges the jury that before