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 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.