St. Paul Fire & Marine Insurance v. Southern Pacific Co.

This is an appeal from a judgment and order denying a new trial in an action wherein the plaintiff recovered judgment in the sum of $350 damages for the alleged destruction of an automobile by fire, caused through the defendant’s negligence. The case was tried by the court without a jury.

The evidence as to the origin of the fire, and also as to the alleged negligence of the agents of the defendant, as the result of which it is claimed to have spread to the warehouse in which the plaintiff’s automobile was stored, was conflicting, but we think the following facts are fairly deducible from the record before us:

The plaintiff’s assignor, L. H. Stevens, was, in the month of June, 1912, the owner of an automobile which he kept in a certain warehouse in the city of Hollister, and which was located along the line of and adjacent to the right of way and railroad tracks of the defendant in said city. Defendant through its agents and employees undertook to bum off the grass along its right of way in the vicinity of this warehouse. They ceased this work about 4 o’clock in the afternoon, and went away after apparently extinguishing the fires. About 5 o’clock Mr. Newton, an employee of the…