Baker v. Thompson
Baker v. Thompson
Opinion of the Court
Opinion by
This action is for injuries sustained in jumping from a burning building, and the negligence charged on the trial to the defendants, its owners, was their failure to provide proper means of egress from it in case of fire. It was two stories high, the second story having been a hall in which public entertainments were given. It was leased to the proprietor of a moving picture show for the evening of February 28, 1906, and at the performance then given the plaintiff was employed by the proprietor of the, show to furnish instrumental music. If the proximate cause of the injuries which she sustained was the failure of the defendants to provide adequate means of egress from the hall in case of fire, this verdict should not be disturbed. As the building was but two stories high there was no statutory duty resting upon the owners to erect fire escapes, and the jury were so instructed; but
Everybody who left the hall by way of the stairway at the entrance passed safely from the building. The plaintiff and a niece started for this stairway, the latter holding the former’s hand. As they were thus proceeding the plaintiff was knocked down by a chair, which, according to an allegation in the statement, was thrown by direction of an agent of one of the defendants. That the plaintiff was knocked down by a chair thrown by some one, is the only conclusion to be reached from her own testimony; but there was no evidence that either of the defendants was in any way responsible for its having been thrown. The plaintiff testifies that when she was knocked down by it she was stunned and lay on the floor in an unconscious condition, and, upon regaining consciousness, went to one of the windows, and, passing through it out on a roof, jumped to the ground, sustaining the injuries for which she is seeking compensation from the defendants. The jury were instructed that she could not recover unless the negligence of the defendants was the proximate cause of her injuries. The negligence charged against them was failure to provide proper means of egress from their hall in case of fire, but the evidence conclusively showed otherwise; for if the plaintiff had proceeded to the stairway, the means of egress from the hall provided by the defendants, she would have passed safely down it from the building, as did all the others who were in the hall. Nothing done or omitted to be done by the defendants interfered with her so proceeding, but the throwing of a chair by some
The thirteenth assignment of error is sustained and the judgment reversed.
Reference
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- Syllabus
- Negligence — Fire—Jumping from burning building — Proximate cause. In a suit to recover damages for personal injuries received in an attempt to escape from a burning hall a recovery will be set aside where the evidence of plaintiff shows conclusively that the proximate cause of the accident was not the alleged negligence of defendant in failing to provide a proper egress from the hall but a blow from a chair, thrown by an unknown person, which stunned plaintiff and prevented her from using the main stairs in front, by which everybody else in peril escaped.