Henderson v. Henderson

In testing the sufficiency of the plaintiff’s evidence to require submission of the issue of negligence to the jury, certain well-established propositions must be kept in mind.

The general law as to what constitutes actionable negligence is thus stated by Justice (later Chief Justice) Hoke: “To establish actionable negligence, the question of contributory negligence being out of the case, the plaintiff is required to show by the greater weight of the testimony, first, that there has been a failure to exercise proper care in the performance of some legal duty which the defendant owed the…