Vile v. Pennsylvania Railroad

Citations

• 246 Pa. 35
• 91 A. 1049
• 1914 Pa. LEXIS 470

Syllabus

<p>Negligence- — Railroads—Gleaning locomotive boilers — SmoJce— Cinders — Injury to adjoining property — Customary method of cleaning — Duty to avoid nuisance — Case for jury.</p> <p>1. In an action against a railroad company to recover damages for injuries to plaintiff’s land resulting from the cleaning of locomotive boilers by means of compressed air, causing smoke, cinders, soot, ashes and greasy substances to fall upon and ruin plaintiff’s plants and vegetables, the fact that the method of cleaning the boilers was that in general use hy other railroad companies will not prevent a recovery where it appears that there were other practicable means of cleaning boilers by the use of which the injuries complained of could have been avoided.</p> <p>2. In such case a verdict for the plaintiff will be sustained where plaintiff’s expert witness testified that the nuisance could be avoided by brushing the tubes instead of cleaning them with compressed air, that this method was effective and had been in use by railroads for seventy years, and that the compressed air method was later adopted to save time and expense; or could be avoided by conveying the noxious fumes through a chimney to a high elevation.</p> <p>Evidence — Witness—Method of cleaning boilers — Locomotive boilers — Experts—Competency.</p> <p>3. In an action against a railroad company to recover damages for injuries to plaintiff’s land resulting from the cleaning of locomotive boilers by means of compressed air, an expert witness called by plaintiff to testify as to the practicable means of cleaning boiler tubes without causing the deposit of objectionable substances, properly qualified where he testified that he had been an engineer for thirty-five years, that he had devoted himself exclu-. sively to the study of power and combustion, and had experience in doing away with the evils of soot, smoke and gas, which included the installation of apparatus for distributing escaping smoke |o that it could do no local