Western Railway v. McPherson
Western Railway v. McPherson
Opinion of the Court
There is nothing in the averments of the amended first count of the complaint, which were descriptive of the transaction complained of, to. indicate or suggest that they did anything more than vary the description of the transaction originally counted on. That amended count was not subject to any objection which might have been available to the defendant on that account if it had constituted a departure from the original complaint.—Kansas City, Memphis & Birmingham R. Co. v. Cobb, 102 Ala. 356, 14 South.
That count of the complaint, in alleging that the employee of the defendant who had charge of its engine, while rnning said engine and acting within the scope of his authority, did “so recklessly, carelessly, and negligently operate its said engine as to strike and knock ’ from defendant’s track” the plaintiff’s cow, and “injured said cow to the extent of $50,” sufficiently showed that the alleged negligence of the engineer in the operation of the engine caused or contributed to the injury complained of. —Western Ry. Co. v. Lazarus, 88 Ala. 453, 6 South. 877; Western Ry. of Ala. v. McPherson, 146 Ala. 427, 40 South. 934; Curry v. Southern Ry. Co., 148 Ala. 57, 42 South. 447. The court was not in error in overruling the demnrrer to the complaint as amended.
In the charge referred to in the third assignment of error, the defendant undertook to enumerate the places at which the infliction of damage to person or property by a railroad company casts upon it the burden of disproving negligence, and asserted as a proposition of law that, to cast on the defendant the burden of disproving the negligence charged in the complaint, the plaintiff mnst have shoAvn, not only that the defendant inflicted the injury, but that it occurred at one of the places mentioned in the charge. If the injury complained of occurred where “the tracks of two railroads cross each other at grade,” the statute expressly casts upon a defendant railroad company, which is sought to be charged with liability for injury to person or property shown to have been inflicted at such a place, the burden of proving a compliance Avith its requirements applicable to that situation. — Code 107, §§ 5474, 5476. Such a place was not included in the enumeration made
The charge referred to in the fourth assignment of error hypothesized the failure of the engineer to see the cow while it was on the right of way. The bill of excep
Affirmed.
Case-law data current through December 31, 2025. Source: CourtListener bulk data.