Baltimore & Ohio Southwestern Ry. Co. v. Cox
Baltimore & Ohio Southwestern Ry. Co. v. Cox
Opinion of the Court
It is elementary that actionable negligence exists only when one negligently injures
The view of counsel for the defendant in error appears to be that the duty of the company to exercise care toward the decedent arose out of the fact that he was riding on the freight train with the express or implied assent of the conductor; and this view is said to have been taken in the circuit court. It invokes the doctrine of the law of agency; and, since the company did not authorize the transportation of passengers on its freight trains, it relies upon the implied or apparent authority of the conductor to bind the company to a relation which its rules forbade. It assumes that the company had given to the conductor an apparent authority which its operating rules had expressly denied him. But the apparent authority of the conductor was to represent the company in the conduct of that portion of its business to which the train in his charge was appropriate. It did not, therefore, exceed his actual authority. The differences between trains intended exclusively for the carriage of freight and those intended for the carriage
The adjectives used to characterize the negligence of the brakeman in leaving the switch open should not be permitted to excuse the obvious failure of the plaintiff below to place her intestate in the position of one to whom the company owed care. In directing a verdict for the defendant the trial judge correctly applied to the evidence the pertinent principles of the law as they are illustrated in the decided cases.
Judgment of the ■ circuit court reversed and that of the common fleas affirmed.
Case-law data current through December 31, 2025. Source: CourtListener bulk data.