McKee v. Iowa Railway & Light Co.

I. This case is predicated on the negligence of the defendant, and we must look to the charge as stated in the instructions given by the trial court. No instructions were requested by the appellant, but certain of the instructions given are challenged in the motion for new trial.

The violation of a common-law duty is involved, and not a duty enjoined by a positive rule of statute. The defendant was not an insurer. It was responsible, if at all, for the negligence as charged by the court in its instruction, and that means the omission to dó something which a reasonably prudent person, guided by…