Kirk

This is an appeal by the Santa Barbara Ice Company (a corporation) from a judgment against it for damages in the sum of five hundred dollars and from an order denying its motion for a new trial.

The action was for personal injuries caused by an obstruction placed on a sidewalk in the city of Santa Barbara by Charles C. Pike, one of the defendants herein. He had restored the cement which had been torn up for the purpose of digging a trench in which pipes were laid connecting a certain shop, owned by one Abraham, with the refrigerating main of the ice company located beneath the street. George E. Voorhees, Jr., an officer of the ice company, in whose name its franchise to lay .pipes in the streets of the city of Santa Barbara had been obtained, was also a defendant, but a motion for nonsuit in his behalf was granted by the court, as it appeared that the corporation was the owner of the franchise, and that Mr. Voorhees had acted for it in obtaining the authority to lay the pipe for the refrigerating systfem.

It appears from the evidence that the Santa Barbara Ice Company caused the digging of the trench across the sidewalk to Abraham’s place of business and that the earth was…