Norfolk & Western Railway Co. v. Richmond Cedar Works

This is an action to recover compensation for damages occasioned by a fire charged against the railway company. There was a verdict for the sum of $60,000, which was reduced by the trial court to $42,500.

We shall use the terms plaintiff and defendant as they were there used.

The defendant is a trunk line railway, with double straight away tracks, running from Norfolk to Suffolk and beyond. Between these two cities is Dismal Swamp. That, as its name indicates, is a swamp. It is of vast extent, and stretches from Virginia into North Carolina. Originally it was covered by valuable forests, but…