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SMITH v. NORTHERN PACIFIC RAILROAD CO.
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consist, or how it could have been instrumental in causing the fire, was not pointed out by the court. We do not approve of holding one liable on a conjecture of possible negligence. The better rule is that the arbitrary presumption is overcome when the defendant has disproved negligence in those particulars as to which negligence might reasonably exist under the circumstances. And of course the plaintiff must be limited to the grounds of negligence set forth in his complaint. The court in this case justified this extreme doctrine by the language of the statute of that state, which, by its terms, clearly imports an absolute liability for fire, irrespective of negligence; the statute providing that “any corporation operating a railroad shall be liable for all damages by fire that is set out or caused by the operation of any such railroad.” Civil Code, Iowa, § 1289. Say the court: “The construction of § 1289, of the Code requires a holding of absolute liability for such fires, or such a rule as this as to presumptions.” If that court intended to decide that the mere fact that a single fire was set, as in that case, 116 feet from the track, was enough to carry the case to the jury, we must express our disapproval of such a rule. The other cases cited to support the claim that the setting of the fire 118 feet from the track was enough to carry the case to the jury, do not warrant any such doctrine. There were other elements which controlled these decisions. In Railroad Co. v. McClelland, 42 Ill. 355, where the fire caught 100 feet from the track, the court say: “There was no proof that the engine which threw the sparks into the plaintiff's meadow was provided with any means by which they might have been arrested. Indeed it is shown by the testimony of some of the engine drivers, sworn on behalf of the defendant, that an engine thus provided will not throw sparks 100 feet, though the wind might carry them twenty or thirty feet.” In Doyscher v. Railroad Co., (Minn.) 45 N. W. Rep. 719; where the fire started eighty-six feet from the track, there was testimony that, at the point where the fire was set out, there was found a coal cinder so large that it could not have passed through the meshes of the wire netting had it been in proper condition. In