Latest Important Cases of the legislature, the right of govern mental control is subject to such
265
house or close was liable to every one
who suffered loss or injury thereby.
reasonable enactments as are directly designed to conserve health, safety, comfort, morals, peace and order. . . . (Lochner v. New York, 198 U. S. 45.)
The severity of that early English rule was moderated by numerous statutes, among which are 6 Anne and 14 Geo.
For the failure of an employer to observe
utes it has been held that they became
III.
As these two last-mentioned stat
such regulations the legislature may
by adoption a part of the common law
unquestionably enact direct penalties or create presumptions of fault which, if
of this state.” ‘
not rebutted by proof, may be regarded as sufiicient evidence of liability for
rate concurring opinion, in which he said: —
damages. That must be the extreme limit of the police power, for just beyond is the Constitution which, in substance
“I am not prepared to deny that where the effects of the work, even
and effect, forbids that a citizen shall
be penalized or subjected to liability unless he has violated some law or has
Chief Judge Cullen rendered a sepa
though prosecuted 'carefully, go be yond a person's own property and in jure third persons in no way connected
been guilty of some fault.”
therewith, the person for whose account the work is done may be held liable
Cases were then considered which had been referred to to illustrate legal
concede the most plenary power in the
liability without fault. In Marvin v. Trout, 199 U. S. 212, the owner was
really at fault in permitting his premises to be used for gambling. In Bertholf v. O‘Reilly, 74 N. Y. 509, he was really at fault in permitting the demised premises to be used for traflic in intoxi
cating liquors.
In St. Louis 6! San
Francisco Ry. Co. v. Mathews, 165 U. S. 1, action was brought under a Missouri statute for injury occasioned by fire
spreading from the defendant's premises. But in such a case the defendant was a public service corporation subjected to special obligations.
Its lia
bility was “in reality a return to the original common-law doctrine under which every person who permitted fire
started by him to escape beyond his
for injuries occasioned thereby.
I also
legislature to prescribe all reasonable rules for the conduct of the work which may conduce to the safety and health of persons employed therein. But I do deny that a person employed in a lawful vocation, the effects of which are confined to his own premises, can be made to indemnify another for injury received in the work unless he has been
in some respect at fault." ‘ No doubt a review of the law in different juris dictions would afford some examples of the survival of the earlier common law principle of liability in the absence of fault. Several states. for example, have approved the rule in Rylands v. Fletcher and cited it as authority. In this connection Frauds H. Bohlen's recent articles in the University of Pennsyl vam'a Law Review are of interest. Mr. Bohlen notes the tendency of "a distinct reversion to the earlier conceptions that he who causes harm. however innocently. is. as its author, bound to make it good." (59 Univ. of Pa. L. Rev. 452.) —Ed.
