Toledo, Wabash & Western Railway Co. v. Corn

Citations

• 71 Ill. 493

Syllabus

<p>1. Pleading—what averments in a declaration are sufficient in a suit against a railroad, for permitting fire to escape. An averment in a declaration that it was the duty of the defendant to keep its right of way free from dry grass and weeds, and to so construct and operate its locomotives as to prevent the escape of fire to the adjoining property, by being communicated from its locomotives to sncli dry grass and weeds, is substantially an averment that it was the duty of the company to provide its locomotives with the best appliances to prevent the escape of fire, and to so use them that it would not be liable to escape; and the performance of this duty is sufficiently negatived by an averment that the engine was so negligently used that fire did, by reason of such negligence, escape and produce the injury complained of.</p> <p>S. Bailboads—only required to use the most approved machinery. The law does not require a railroad company to provide and use the best known appliances that mechanical skill and ingenuity have been able to devise and construct to prevent the escape of sparks from its locomotives, without reference to whether the company could, by any degree of effort, know of such inventions or not, or whether they have been tested and proved to be the best.</p> <p>3. A railroad company is not bound to purchase the patent for every invention claimed to be an improvement on such machinery, and test it; but when such an invention has been tested and approved as better than that it is using, it is required to adopt and use the better machinery. In this, as in the discharge of their other duties, railroad companies can only be required to employ due diligence to provide themselves with the best, but can not be held to unreasonable and ruinous efforts to prevent injury.</p> <p>4. Instbtjctions—when erroneous, always ground for reversal in doubtful cases. Where it is manifest, from the evidence, that justice has been done, and that any other finding would not b