Peterson Ex Rel. Peterson v. Taylor

ALLBEE, Justice.

An unfortunate combination of gasoline, matches and a seven-year-old boy resulted in the lawsuit which underlies this appeal. Badly burned as a result of his experimentation with fire, the minor plaintiff David Peterson, by his mother as next friend, brought a negligence suit against his neighbors, the Taylors, from whose storage shed he obtained the gasoline. The jury returned a verdict for the defendants, and plaintiff appeals.

Evidence at trial showed that the Taylors and the Petersons lived on neighboring small acreages just outside the Des Moines city limits and that David…