Latest Important Cases result which might be burdensome to the employer, although successfully defended. The state can impose no such burden. Negligence. "Turn-table Doctrine—Infant Who is not Chargeable With Contributory Negligence or Trespass. U. S. That doctrine usually alluded to as that of "turn-table cases" has of late been so often swerved from that the decision in Snare & Triest Co. v. Friedman, 169 Fed. Rep. 1, assumes interest because of its adherence to it. Defendant, an independent contractor, had left material consisting partly of heavy iron girders near a street. One of these beams became so nicely balanced on the other material that it could easily be displaced and caused to fall. Plaintiff, a little girl four and a half years old, with several companions had been skating on the pavement, when she sat at the base of the girders to rest. One of her companions, climbing upon the pile, so struck one end of the balancing girder that it fell, crushing plaintiff's foot. The Circuit Court of Appeals held that the child could not, by reason of her age, be charged with contributory negligence or with being a tres passer, and that defendant was liable. See Procedure. Privacy. Publication of Picture—Defama tion—Fraud. Ky. A patent medicine concern published in its magazine a forged recommendation of a patent medicine along with plaintiff's picture. The publication also contained a sketch of plaintiff, showing him to be a person of promi nence in the community. Plaintiff in his suit for libel in Foster-Milburn Co. v. Chinn, 120 S. W. Rep. 364, charged that he did not write the letter and that it was published without his authority and brought him into ridicule and greatly mortified him. It was insisted strenuously for defendant that the publication was not actionable. Ordinarily words verbally spoken are not actionable per se, unless they impute a crime, but there is an important difference between oral slander and a written or printed publication. Such a publication is actionable when it subjects the person to disgrace, ridicule or contempt in the estimation of his friends and acquain tances or the public. After asserting this dis tinction, the Court maintains that a person is entitled to the right of privacy as to his pic ture, and that its publication without his consent as a part of an advertisement for the purpose of exploiting the publisher's business
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is a violation of such privacy and entitles him to recover without proof of special damage. It is further held to be a fraud on the public to publish the forged endorsements of public men of a patent medicine which they have never seen. Procedure. When Questions of Negligence are not for the Jury— Facts Must be Reason ably Uncontroversial to Justify Withdrawal. U. S. The case of Kreigh v. Westinghouse, Church, Kerr & Co. came before the United States Supreme Court upon a writ of certiorari to the United States Circuit Court of Appeals for the eighth circuit. The action was brought for injuries received while superintending the construction of a brick and steel building for which plaintiff's employer, the defendant, was the contractor. The Circuit Court of Appeals had taken the case from the jury on the evidence offered, which showed that the plaintiff had been knocked from a staging where he was superintending the work of bricklayers, by a heavy bucket used by fellow workmen in hoisting concrete material to the roof, the derrick employed for the purpose having but one guy rope, such der ricks ordinarily being provided with two. The Supreme Court reversed the decision and ordered a new trial, holding that the evidence should have gone to the jury. Mr. Justice Day, in delivering the opinion of the Court, said:— "Questions of negligence do not become questions of law, to be decided by the court, except 'where the facts are such that all reasonable men must draw the same conclu sion from them; or, in other words, a case should not be withdrawn from the jury unless the conclusion follows as matter of law that no recovery can be had upon any view which can be properly taken of the facts the evidence tends to establish.' Gardner v. Michigan C. R. Co., 150 U. S. 349, 361, 37 L. ed. 1107, 1110, 14 Sup. Ct. Rep. 140. "It may be that the jury would have found that the injury to the plaintiff was the result solely of the negligence of his fellow servants, but there was testimony in the case tending to establish the unsafe character of the der rick when operated in the manner it was intended to be operated, so far as the record discloses." Public Ways. Height of Vehicles— Validity of Municipal Ordinance. N. Y. To protect the trees and other vegetation
