Turner v. Laying
Turner v. Laying
Opinion of the Court
The opinion of the court was delivered by
This action was brought by the sons and daughters, the sole heirs, of Mary Turner for damages for the negligent killing of their mother by a car operated on defendant’s interurban railway. A demurrer to the evidence of plaintiffs was sustained. Plaintiffs appeal.
The deceased, with her daughter, had been in the country on a visit. On the night of her death the two, at about the time for the interurban, went to the shelter house of defendant at Stop 28. They heard a car coming and crossed the tracks in order to be on the proper side to board it. The mother stood at the end of the ties and leaning over the rails waved her handkerchief as a signal for the car to stop. This did not prove to be the regular passenger car on this line, but was a baggage car running about five minutes ahead of the schedule of the passenger car. Appellants insist in their brief that the motorman gave a signal when he was about 200 feet from where the deceased was struck, but the record does not disclose any
Appellants claim that the company was negligent in that the motorman drove the car at a reckless and needless rate of speed at the time the mother was killed. There is no evidence in the record that indicates that. Another ground is that the motorman failed to stop after he indicated that he would. We are unable to find any evidence that he did so signal. Another ground urged is that the motorman failed to use reasonable care after seeing deceased continuously and persistently in apparent danger leaning over the- tracks. What reasonable care was required of him? He must have seen the woman and knew that she was signaling him to stop. If he knew that she thought the car she was signaling was a passenger car there is no reason why he would conclude that she would remain leaning over the rail and continue signaling until the car actually arrived at a place where it could strike her. He had every reason to believe that she would straighten up and thereby esc-ape injury. Even had this been the regular passenger car this would have been the case, and much more so when it was a car that was not expected to stop at this place and was not expected to be signaled to stop. We are unable to see any negligence at all on the part of the railroad company in the manner in which this car was operated on the night that Mrs. Turner was killed. The evidence was that they could see the car coming for a long distance. There were no peculiar circumstances or surroundings at this stop which made any extra precaution necessary, and there is no evi
The rule of this court established in Kern v. Kansas City, L. & W. Rly. Co., 125 Kan. 506, 264 Pac. 1067, appears to us to be decisive in this case on the ground of contributory negligence. The judgment is affirmed.
Case-law data current through December 31, 2025. Source: CourtListener bulk data.