Page:North Dakota Reports (vol. 2).pdf/165

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BOSS v. NORTHEBN PACIFIC RAILROAD CO.
139

impaired in this case. The utmost latitude that could be given the evidence would only warrant the conclusion that the culpable act of the fellow workmen concurred with the existing, continuing, negligent act of defendant in producing the injury. But the concurrent negligence of the fellow workmen is of no importance. Where the negligent acts of two parties concur in producing an indivisable injury, the injured party has his right of action against either. Pastene v. Adams, 49 Cal. 87; Martin v. Iron Works, 31 Minn. 407, 18 N. W. Rep. 109; Ricker v. Freeman, 50 N. H. 420; Atkinson v. Transportation Co., 60 Wis. 141, 18 N. W. Rep. 764; Railway Co. v. Salmon, 39 N. J. Law, 309.

“The breach of duty on which an action is brought must be not only the cause, but the proximate cause, of the damage to plaintiff.” Under this familiar language, it is urged that the breach of duty in this case was not the proximate cause of the injury in the sense that the injury was not one that could have been naturally and reasonably anticipated as a result of such breach of duty. There is not an entire uniformity of holding upon this point. The rule most generally followed, and which we adopt, was announced in Railroad Co, v. Kellogg, 94 U. S. 469, as follows: ‘But it is generally held that in order to warrant a finding that negligence, or an act not amounting to wanton wrong, is the proximate cause of the injury, it must appear that the injury was the natural and probable consequence of the negligent or wrongful act, and that it ought to have been seen in the light of the attending circumstances. These circumstances, in a case like the present, are the strength and direction of the wind, the combustible character of the elevator, its great height, and the proximity and combustible character of the saw mills and piles of lumber.” But the argument in this case is that defendant could not reasonably have foreseen or anticipated the circumstances that led up to the injury. We think this is a misconception of the rule. Shear & R. Neg. § 29, thus states the rule: “The practical solution of the question appears to us to be that a person guilty of negligence should be held responsible for all the consequences which a prudent and experienced man, fully acquainted with all