STILES v. GEESEY
Supreme Court, Pennsylvania, May 30, 1872.
Reported in 71 Pennsylvania State Reports, 439.
Before Thompson, C. J., Read, Agnew, Sharswood and Williams, JJ.
Error to the Court of Common Pleas of York County.
Action on the case by Jacob B. Geesey against Thomas Stiles, for alleged injury by the negligence of William Stiles, son of defendant, by which plaintiff’s horse and carriage were damaged.[[196]]
Plaintiff’s wife, driving in a light carriage of plaintiff’s, hitched her horse to a tree on the road, and went into a friend’s house. The carriage projected into the travelled part of the road. Whilst the carriage was so left, the defendant’s son, William Stiles, was driving his father’s team with a loaded wagon along the road. He got off to do something to his wagon; and seeing an acquaintance in a neighboring barn, stopped a moment to exchange a few words with him, the team moving on slowly at the time with the load up the hill, keeping the travelled track of the road till the front horse was just behind plaintiff’s carriage standing unattended where it was left. At this point of time William Stiles was behind his own wagon, at some distance from it; and did not see the obstruction in the road in time to avoid a collision. The wagon collided with the carriage. Stiles halloed “Whoa,” and his horses stopped. In the collision, the plaintiff’s horse was fatally injured.
The third point of the plaintiff, which was affirmed in the charge to the jury by Fisher, P. J., is as follows:—
“That Thomas Stiles cannot excuse the negligence of William Stiles by showing that the plaintiff’s property was placed where it received the injury by want of ordinary care by Mrs. Geesey, if, in the opinion of the jury such want is imputable to her, should the jury believe that William Stiles was chargeable with negligence in leaving his team and permitting it to go along the highway unattended.”
Verdict for plaintiff.
Read, J. [After stating the facts.] We have taken in brief, the defendant’s statement of his defence, which fairly raises the question of contributory negligence. “It is an incontestable principle that where the injury complained of is the product of mutual or concurring negligence, no action for damages will lie. The parties being mutually in fault there can be no apportionment of the damages. The law has no scales to determine in such cases whose wrong-doing weighed most in the compound that occasioned the mischief:” per Woodward, J., 12 Harris, 469.
“The question presented to the Court or the jury is never one of comparative negligence, as between the parties; nor does very great negligence on the part of a defendant so operate to strike a balance of negligence as to give a judgment to a plaintiff whose own negligence contributes in any degree to the injury.” Wilds v. Hudson River Railroad Co., 24 N. Y. 432.