Pitcher v. N. Y. C. & H. R. R. R. Co.
Pitcher v. N. Y. C. & H. R. R. R. Co.
Opinion of the Court
Order affirmed, with costs. Ro opinion. All concur, except •Bradley, J., dissenting, and Haight, J., absent.
Dissenting Opinion
The following are my reasons briefly stated for not agreeing with the majority of the court:
When the plaintiff’s intestate entered the employment of the defendant he assumed the usual hazards of the service; but not the peril to which the negligence of defendant should subject him. His duties were those of brakeman. As such he was upon a freight train which left the yard near Syracuse in the evening of February 14, 1888, and the inference was warranted that he was struck by a bridge under which the train passed, and in that manner received the injury resulting in his death. He had been in the service of the defendant since the 6th of that month, and previously from about November 1 to December 20, 1887. And during those times he had frequently passed as brakeman upon the defendant’s freight trains under this bridge. The question presented on this review is whether there was evidence sufficient to support a recovery by the plaintiff. The defendant had failed to perform the duty imposed upon it by the statute, which provides that “Every steam railroad shall within six months after the passage of this' act erect and thereafter maintain such suitable warning signals at every low bridge or structure which crosses the railroad above the tracks where such warning signals may be necesssary for the protection of employees on top of cars from injury.” Laws 1884, chap. 439, § 2. There were not and so far as appears never had been any warning signals at this bridge. None in fact were necessary for the purposes of the defendant’s cars, as it was so high as to permit a brakeman to stand upon them without danger of in
The situation in the present case was quite different, not only in the respects before mentioned, but it was dark and "stormy when the train approached the bridge. And although there was evidence tending to prove that early in. November, the deceased was brakeman on a train containing some of these higher cars which passed under the bridge, the evidence was not such as to-require the jury to find that he had ever .before",the. time' of the injury been upon the top of a train' containing'.such high cars when it passed under the'bridge The; distinction between this- and the Williams case", therefore, .is .such_as, to- Render the latter quite inapplicable to the question here.- Itlmay be assumed, that the deceased had passed under this bridge; ¡many times, standing on the top of box cars in trains on which lie vas bnafceman. And as the defendant so changed the.situation by' thñmss of higher cars, as to render it perilous for him .to 'o'BBMj^r as UspI his plaice of duty upon the train, and negligently onfifedi fe> ptoyiSb iEhe statutory warning for his protection, the 'conclusion o_f the; jury was permitted, that the negligence of the. defendant was. the sctl'e cause of the injury sustained by the plaintiff’s intestate. This is deemed so because the inference is fairly deduciMliSi SziDm. th&exh
My view, therefore, is that the question of contributory negligence was for the jury, and that the order should be reversed and judgment directed for the plaintiff on the verdict.
Judgment affirmed, with costs.
Reference
- Full Case Name
- Sophia Pitcher, as Adm'rx, etc., App'lt v. The N. Y. C. & H. R. R. R. Co., Resp't
- Status
- Published