Pauley v. Steam Guage & Lantern, Co.

The plaintiff’s intestate lost his life in a fire which, consumed the factory of the defendant, and did its work so swiftly and swept through all parts of the structure with such rapidity that more than thirty of the men employed in the building were unable to escape. The origin of the fire is unknown. No claim is made that it was occasioned by any act or omission of the defendant company, or was in any manner a product or result of its fault or negligence. The ground upon which the action brought to recover damages for the death of the intestate actually rests is that the defendant was negligent in not providing sufficient and adequate means of escape from the building in the emergency of its taking fire, and that such negligence operated to cause the death of the intestate. The plaintiff was non-suited at the circuit, but on exceptions heard at the general term obtained a reversal of the ruling and an order for a new trial. The defendant has appealed from that judgment to this court, giving the usual stipulation, and we are now to determine whether, upon any view of the facts, the plaintiff was entitled to recover.

We are satisfied that if any duty devolved upon the defendant to anticipate the possible burning of its building and provide modes of escape adequate to that emergency, such duty did not exist at common law, and had its origin and measure in the statute which for the first time required in particular cases the construction of fire escapes. Laws of 1887, -chap. 462, § 10. Prior thereto, the owner of a building not peculiarly exposed to the danger of fire from the character of the work to be carried on within it, was not bound to anticipate what was merely a remote or possible danger, or that its occurrence would put in jeopardy the lives of his workmen.

The ordinary means of escape by stairs and halls and doorways and windows might reasonably be deemed sufficient, and ■the common law did not require, where the building was properly constructed for its intended use and purpose, that extra and unusual precautions should be adopted to protect the occupants against a danger for which the owner should be in no manner re-1 snonsible and which he was not reasonably bound to anticipate. That was held in Jones v. Granite Mills, 126 Mass., 84 , a case which we cited as authority in Bajus v. S.,B. & N. Y. R. R. Co., 103 N. Y., 319 ; 3 St. Rep., 96 , and the doctrine was repeated in Keith v. Granite Mills, 126 Mass., 90 . But with the growth of invention and the spread of the mechanic arts, came an increase in the number of factories employed in production, of the workmen gathered in their rooms, and especially in the size and height of the buildings. The attention of the legislature was first

' I am unable to agree with the contention of the appellant that-the sole remedy under the statute was the public remedy which consisted of an enforcement of the penalties provided. The requirement of fire escapes was for the direct and special benefit of the operatives in such factories, and intended for their protection, and the rule applies that when a statute commands or prohibits a thing for the benefit of a person he shall have a remedy upon the same statute for the thing enacted for his advantage, or for a wrong done to him contrary to its terms. We so held in Willy v. Mulledy, 78 N. Y., 310 , and sustained an action in behalf of the persons injured for the omission to provide fire escapes in accordance with the statute applicable to that case. We musthold, therefore, that the law of 1887 imposed a duty upon the owners-' or occupants of the prescribed class of factories, for an omission to perform which the operatives injured by the omission might, recover damages.

But the duty so imposed is both created and measured by thestatuta It is a new duty, having no other origin and no other-measure, and cannot' be made to outrun or exceed the terms of the act. The defendants performed that duty. They placed two-fire escapes upon their factory which connected with each floor above the first, and were well fastened, perfectly secure, and of sufficient strength. Their number, character and location were examined and approved by the public officer appointed und.er the-law, with whom the subject was fully discussed, and who, after the work was done, and he bad carefully inspected it, expressed his approval and reported to his superiors that this factory bad, in all respects, obeyed the law. It is true that this building, which was five stories high on the side towards the court, and seven stories high on the side towards the river, had no scuttle-leading to the roof at the top of its upper story, -with a stationary ladder provided for access to it. But it was shown that one of

While it was on the outside of the building instead of the inside, it was an iron ladder instead of a wooden one, giving permanent and fixed access to the roof, and 'neither the defendant nor the inspector were guilty of negligence in constructing and accepting it as a fit and suitable substitute for the inside ladder ■and scuttle. Indeed, in the fire which occurred the latter was shown to be an utterly unavailable means of escape however it might have been constructed and maintained. Balconies leading to the fire escapes were not required by the law, but were recommended by the inspector, and were placed near one of the fire -escapes, but omitted from the other, and when the work was done it met the full approval of the officer required to examine it.

Upon this state of facts it is impossible to say, as we look at the situation before the fire, that the defendant omitted any duty imposed upon it by the statute, or was negligent or careless in the •due performance; and the plaintiff’s counsel found it necessary to break the force of the proof by showing facts connected with the •construction of the fire escapes which, as he claimed, made the latter an obedience to the law in form only while disobeying it in .substance and effect.

One of these facts, and that mainly relied on by the plaintiff, was the existence of a sliute leading from the court into the basement, and placed beneath the fire escape so that a person dropping from its lower rung would be likely to fall into the opening and be returned again into the burning structure. This was the specific negligence charged in the complaint, and its theory of the manner in which the intestate met his death. If anything can be said to be clearly evolved from the horrible confusion of the tragedy described by the proof, it is that the deceased did not meet his death in that manner and from that cause; that he never descended the fire escape or fell into the shute, but was suffocated in the smoke which filled the building, and went down, dead, into the basement with the falling floors. Ho one saw him at a window or on a fire escape. There is no trace of him in any such direction. What we do know is the frightful description of the panic on the fifth floor where the deceased was employed, after escape downward by the stairs was barred by the smoke and flames, in which strong men lost their senses in a frenzy of despair, threw their arms about each others’ necks, held back some who tried to escape, and waited in helpless terror for the death which '.they deemed inevitable. The flames pervaded the whole building above the basement almost instantaneously. They poured out of the windows and flowed over the fire escapes. Those who had the courage and coolness to descend them were burned and blistered on their way, and tell us how some of their companions were turned back from the iron rungs by the puffs of fire which enveloped them. When the bodies of the dead were found their location and situation disclosed the only truth we are ever likely to .know. One group of eleven, interlocked and intertwisted so that it

The evidence, thus, so far from tending to sustain the theory of the complaint, tends only to disprove it, and no judgment founded upon it can be sustained.

But the respondent and the general term insist that some other-theory may be adopted, and in order to do so, enter upon the realm of conjecture, and ask that a jury, in the utter absence of proof, may be allowed to guess that there was some negligence on the part of the defendant which might have tended to cause the-death of the intestate. In this connection the open blinds making an approach to one of the fire escapes difficult was referred to. The inspector testifies, in substance, that- they formed no serious-obstruction. He says: “ I observed what the effect was upon the-fire escape when those blinds were open; there was a little space left in the centre that a man might come down on, but the blinds-materially closed over the fire escape leaving perhaps a foot in thecentre that it didn’t cover; I did not measure it to see whether it-was as wide as a foot; I think a man could reach it easy enough, because the windows were close together; it wasn’t a big distance to reach, just about the width of the blind; all he would have to-reach over would be the blind.”

It is evident that the inspector before the fire, with a full knowledge of the presence and effect of these blinds, did not deem them a serious hindrance to the use of the fire escape, gave no order for their removal, and deemed the escape sufficient within-the law. One of the workmen did, in fact, escape by that route, though unable, to say how he did it. What is claimed is that, there is proof that some of the operatives fled to this escape but could not use it on account of the blinds, and we are asked to permit a jury to guess or conjecture that Pauley was one of these without any proof of the fact and in the face of the evidence that, no one who did use it or approach it saw him at all. Now the proof does not show that any one was turned back because he could'

It is difficult not to sympathize with the sufferers from this deplorable accident even at the expense of one’s better judgment, but we must be governed by our conviction that no cause of action was established.

The order of the general term should be reversed, and judgment be entered on the nonsuit for the defendant, with costs.

All concur, except Maynard, J., taking no part.