Hoyt v. Jeffers
Facts
Jeffers owned lot 1, block 19 in East Saginaw, including the Sherman House hotel and nearby barn, shed, and wash-house, while Hoyt owned and operated a steam saw-mill about 233 feet away. The mill chimney lacked a spark-catcher and allegedly emitted live sparks and burning cinders for years, sometimes igniting nearby property, including prior fires at the Sherman House; persons running the mill were told of the danger. Evidence tended to show that spark-catchers or other devices could have substantially reduced the escape of dangerous sparks, and that the chimney's height increase in spring 1870 did not materially reduce the problem. A jury found that sparks from the mill set Jeffers's buildings on fire and awarded damages.
Issue
Whether the trial court properly allowed evidence of prior and later similar spark emissions and fires, notice to the mill foreman, and spark-catchers used on other kinds of smoke-stacks, and whether the defendant was negligent for failing to use reasonably adequate precautions to prevent dangerous sparks from his mill chimney from igniting nearby property. The case also presented whether liability could extend from the first building ignited to adjacent outbuildings burned by the spread of that fire.
Rule
When a mill is lawfully operated with fire in a place where surrounding property is endangered, the owner must use such precautions and means as a prudent person, conversant with the business and the existing danger, would use under like circumstances. If experience has shown a device or means to be reasonably adequate, or the best reasonably known means, to prevent the escape of dangerous sparks, the owner must avail himself of it if it is applicable and reasonably knowable, even if it has not previously been used on that exact kind of chimney. Evidence of similar prior or subsequent spark emissions and fires is admissible when conditions are shown to be substantially the same, and notice to the foreman in charge is notice to the owner. If the defendant's negligence causes one building to burn, he is also liable for other buildings on the lot burned by the natural spread of that fire, without contributory negligence by the plaintiff or an intervening proximate cause.
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If a neighboring tailor shop burns after a jury finds a spark from the furnace caused the fire, which instruction on Owen's duty is most consistent with the governing rule?