man would exercise under the circumstances-would avoid such result. The contrary rule wounds every humane feeling in man's nature; it is opposed to the great golden rule and cannot be sanctioned by reason. We do not think it is, or ever was, the law. Negligence and contributory negligence must not be confounded. Negligence is contributory when, and only when, it directly and proximately induces the injury, in whole or in part. Where the negligent acts of two parties concur in producing an injury, neither being able in the exercise of ordinary care to avoid the consequences of the negligence of the other after it is known, neither is liable to the other. But where one party has been negligent, and a second party, knowing of such antecedent negligence, fails to use ordinary care to prevent an injury which the antecedent negligence rendered possible, and the injury follows by reason of such failure, the negligence of the second party is the sole proximate cause of the injury.
In the case of Isbell v. Railroad Co., 27 Conn. 393, the action was brought to recover the value of cattle killed by defendant's train, and by reason of negligence in its management. The cattle were trespassers, but plaintiff was guilty of no actual wrong or negligence. The case does not disclose whether the cattle were seen or not, and in that respect was weaker than the case at bar. The position of defendant in that case was identical with the position of this defendant, and is thus stated by the court: "The defendants say that, because the cattle were there, it puts the plaintiff, of necessity, in the wrong in the eye of the law, and works a forfeiture of the right to demand the exercise of care on the part of the defendants in running their trains of cars, even though from the want of such care the cattle should be run over and killed." The court in argument say: "A remote fault in one party does not, of course, dispense with care in the other. It may even make it more necessary and important if thereby a calamitous injury can be avoided, or an unavoidable calamity essentially mitigated. Common justice and common humanity, to say nothing of law, demand this; and it is no answer for the neglect of it to say that the complainant was first in the wrong, since inattention and accidents are to a greater or less extent incident to human
