Higgins v. Dewey
Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court
Tort for setting and guarding a fire on the defendant’s land so negligently that it spread to the plaintiff’s land and burned his timber. ’ At the trial in the superior court, before Rockwell, J., there was evidence tending to show that the defendant, for the purpose of destroying brush on his land, set fire to the brush within six feet of the plaintiff’s adjoining land, which was covered with brush; that very soon afterwards fire was discovered on the plaintiff’s land, some…
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Tort for setting and guarding a fire on the defendant’s land so negligently that it spread to the plaintiff’s land and burned his timber. ’ At the trial in the superior court, before Rockwell, J., there was evidence tending to show that the defendant, for the purpose of destroying brush on his land, set fire to the brush within six feet of the plaintiff’s adjoining land, which was covered with brush; that very soon afterwards fire was discovered on the plaintiff’s land, some sixteen rods distant, and over the brow of a ridge of land some thirty or forty feet above the level where the…
1Opinion of the CourtGray, J.
The instructions requested were rightly refused, and the instructions given were correct and sufficient. A man who negligently sets fire on his-own land, and keeps it negligently, is liable to an action at common law for any injury done by the spreading or communication of the fire directly from his own land to the property of another, whether through the air or along the ground, and whether he might or might not have reasonably anticipated the particular manner and direction in which it is actually communicated. Tubervil v. Stamp, 1 Salk. 13; 2 Salk. 726; 1 Ld. Raym. 264; 3 Ld. Raym. 375;…
2Cases cited2 opinions
- Perley v. Eastern RailroadMassachusetts Supreme Judicial Court · 1868
- Luce v. Dorchester Mutual Fire InsuranceMassachusetts Supreme Judicial Court · 1870
3Cited by46 opinions
- Milwaukee & Saint Paul Railway Co. v. KelloggSupreme Court of the United States · 1877
- Ferguson v. . HubbellNew York Court of Appeals · 1884
- Commonwealth v. RhoadesMassachusetts Supreme Judicial Court · 1980
- Harrison v. Kansas City Electric Light Co.Supreme Court of Missouri · 1906
- Atkinson v. Goodrich Transportation Co.Wisconsin Supreme Court · 1884
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