Railroad v. Harvey
Railroad v. Harvey
Opinion of the Court
The Railroad Company is not answerable in damages for the loss of the little boy’s leg unless his injury was caused by the neglect by the railroad company of some duty it owed to the boy, and the Water Works Company is not answerable in damages for the death of the little girl unless she lost her life because the employes of the company neglected to observe some duty that it owed to her.
The duty of the owner or occupier of land to persons coming upon it depends somewhat upon whether they are there by his invitation or permission. To invited persons it is his duty to exercise reasonable care for their safety; to licensees it is his duty to give notice of hidden dangers or traps, while trespassers, that is,- persons entering without permission, assume the risk of injury from the condition of the premises and the duty of the occupier to them is only to be careful not to injure them by bringing force to bear upon them.
The only exception to his non-liability to persons entering without his permission, was where he made a change in the condition of his land, adjacent to a public highway, so as to endanger the safety of travellers who might, without fault on their part, accidentally stray from the highway.
So the law stood until the decision in The Sioux City & Pac. R. R. Co. v. Stout, reported in 17 Wallace, 657, decided in 1874. In that case a little boy, about six years of age, lost his foot while playing with a turntable, on the unenclosed lands of the railroad company, in company with two other boys, and a judgment for $7,500 was sustained. This case was tried before Dillon, circuit judge, and Dundy, district judge. The circuit judge charged the jury as follows: “This action rests, and rests alone, upon the alleged
“If the turntable, in the manner it was constructed and left, was not dangerous in its nature, then of course the defendants would not be guilty of any negligence in not locking or guarding it. But even if it was dangerous in its nature in some situations, you áre further to consider whether, situated as it was on the defendant’s property, in a small town, and distant or somewhat remote from habitations, the defendants are guilty of negligence in not anticipating or foreseeing, if left unlocked or unguarded, that injuries to the children of the place would be likely to or would probably ensue.
“The machine in question is part of the defendant’s road, and was lawfully constructed where it was. If the railroad company did not know, and had no good reason to suppose, that children would resort to the turntable to play, or did not know, or had no good reason to suppose, that if they resorted there, they would be likely to get injured thereby, then you cannot find a verdict against them.
“But if the defendant did know, or had good reason to believe, under the circumstances of the
This charge, in the supreme court, was held to be a correct statement of the law. In many of the states the courts have followed the lead of the Supreme Court of the United States and a multitude of cases has arisen seeking to make the owners of property liable for injuries to children from accidents happening upon their premises, on the ground that the owner was negligent in not anticipating that children would be likely to be attracted to the place and to be injured. The multitude of circumstances under which the owner of property would be liable for injuries to children, and the very serious burden that was, in consequence, being placed on the owners of property, were very probably not for-seen in the Stout case. But the cases became so numerous as to occasion very careful examination of the principles laid down in that case. In many jurisdictions the correctness of the conclusion there reached is denied, and in some of the states where that decision was followed the courts have repudiated the doctrine, in others they have limited it, and in still others they have declined to follow the doctrine in any case excepting a turntable case.
To even enumerate the cases in which the so-called turntable doctrine has been applied or
The following are turntable cases in which the doctrine is applied.
United States. — Sioux City & Pac. R. R. Co. v. Stout, 17 Wall., 657.
Minnesota. — Keffe v. Milwaukee & St. P. Ry. Co., 21 Minn., 207; O’Malley, Admx., v. St. P., Minneapolis & Manitoba Ry. Co., 43 Minn., 289.
Nebraska. — A. & N. R. R. Co. v. Bailey, Admr., 11 Neb., 332.
Missouri. — Koons v. St. Louis & Iron Mountain R. R. Co., 65 Mo., 592; Nagel v. Missouri Pac. Ry. Co., 75 Mo., 653.
Kansas. — Kansas Central Ry. Co. v. Fitzsimmons, 22 Kan., 686; Union Pacific Ry. Co. v. Dunden, 37 Kan., 1.
Iowa. — Edgington v. Burlington C. R. & N. Ry. Co., 116 Ia., 410.
California. — Barrett v. Southern Pacific Co., 91 Cal., 296.
Washington. — Ilwaco Ry. & Navigation Co. v. Hedrick, Admr., 1 Wash., 446.
Tennessee. — Bates v. Railway Co., 90 Tenn., 36. But railway company is not required to fasten the turntable any more securely than necessary to keep it securely in place.
Illinois. — St. Louis, V. & T. H. R. R. Co. v. Bell, 81 Ill., 76. Reversed judgment on the sole ground that the company was not negligent in view of the' isolated position of the turntable.
South Carolina. — Bridger v. A. & S. R. R. Co., 25 S. Car., 24.
Texas. — Evansich v. G. C. & S. F. Ry. Co., 57 Tex., 126; G. C. & S. F. Ry. Co. v. McWhirter, 77 Tex., 356; Ft. Worth & Denver City Ry. Co. v. Measles, 81 Tex., 474.
To these should be added Union Pacific Ry. Co. v. McDonald, 152 U. S., 262. This was not a turntable case, but a case in which a boy was injured in a slack pit of the railroad company. However, the doctrine of the turntable cases was re-examined and approved.
In the following cases, in which the injuries were received at a turntable, the doctrine of the turntable cases is denied.
New Hampshire. — Frost v. Eastern R. R. Co., 64 N. H., 220.
Massachusetts. — Daniels v. N. Y. & N. E. R. R. Co., 154 Mass., 349.
New York. — Walsh v. Fitchburg R. R. Co., 145 N. Y., 301.
New Jersey. — Turess v. N. Y., Susq. & West. R. Co., 61 N. J. L., 314; D. L. & W. R. R. Co. v. Reich, 61 N. J. L., 635.
Virginia. — Walker v. Potomac, etc., R. Co., 105 Va., 226.
In the following cases, where the injuries were not sustained at a turntable, the doctrine of the turntable cases is denied.
New Jersey. — Friedman v. Snare & Triest Co., 71 N. J. L., 605.
Michigan. — Ryan v. Towar, 128 Mich., 463.
Rhode Island. — Paolino v. McKendall, 24 R. I., 432.
In the following cases, in which children were injured, but not while • playing with a turntable, liability is denied in courts that have adopted the turntable doctrine in cases where the injuries were received at a turntable.
Minnesota. — Emerson v. Peteler, 35 Minn., 481; Twist v. Railroad Co., 39 Minn., 164; Haesley, Admr., v. Railroad Co., 46 Minn., 233; Dehanitz v. City of St. Paul, 73 Minn., 385; Ratte v. Dawson, 50 Minn., 450; Stendal v. Boyd, 67 Minn., 279; Stendal v. Boyd, 73 Minn., 53; Erickson v. Grt. Northern Ry. Co., 82 Minn., 60.
Georgia. — Savannah, F. & W. R. Co. v. Beavers, 113 Ga. 398; O’Connor v. Brucker, 117 Ga., 451.
Nebraska. — Richards, Admx., v. Connell, 45 Neb., 467; City of Omaha v. Bowman, Admx., 52 Neb., 293.
California. — Peters v. Bowman, 115 Cal., 345.
Missouri. — Overholt v. Vieths, 93 Mo., 422; Barney v. Railroad Co., 126 Mo., 372; Witte v. Stifel, 126 Mo., 295; Arnold v. City of St. Louis, 152 Mo., 173.
Kansas. — Railroad Co. v. Bockoven, Admr., 53 Kan., 279.
Texas. — Dobbins v. M. K. & T. Ry. Co., 91 Tex. 60.
Tennessee. — Stone Co. v. Pugh, 115 Tenn., 688.
Washington. — Clark v. Northern Pac. Ry. Co., 29 Wash., 139; Curtis v. Tenino Stone Quarries, 37 Wash., 355; Harris v. Cowles, 38 Wash., 331.
Tn the recent case, Friedman v. Snare & Triest Co., 71 N. J. L., 605, where the court denied liability for injuries to a little girl, between four and five years of age, who had been injured while playing upon some iron girders, that fell upon her while playing upon them in the street, where they had been placed by an abutting property owner for use in the construction of a building, the English cases that are cited as supporting the decision in Railroad Company v. Stout, supra, are reviewed. And in Ryan v. Towar, 128 Mich., 463, many of the cases, both English and American are examined, and the doctrine of the turntable cases is expressly disapproved. In that case, the defendant owned a small pump-house located upon ground owned by a railroad company. In the house was a small, overshot water-wheel. The plaintiff, a girl about twelve or thirteen years of age, was in the habit of passing this pump-house on the way to school with her brothers and sisters; going across lots through the field, because it was nearer. For some time previous to the time of the accident, a hole existed in the stone wall of the house enclosing the 'wheel, through which children went to play on the wheel. On the day in question, the brothers of plaintiff, on the way from school, crawled through this hole, and, mounting the wheel, were able by their weight to turn the wheel part way round and back. A younger sister, aged eight years, got
Of the case of Powers v. Harlow, 53 Mich., 507, in which the opinion is by Judge Cooley, and which is quoted from at some length in Union Pac. Ry. Co. v. McDonald, 152 U. S., 262, as approving the turntable doctrine, he says: “Clearly, this does not adopt the rule of Railroad Co. v. Stout.”
And in conclusion he says: “That a landowner is under no obligation to use care to protect a trespasser is a broad and until recently, undisputed rule, without exception; liability for injuries sustained by such being limited to cases of intentional or wanton injuries. The rule, with this limitation, is sustained today by the' great weight of authority. It is contended by some law writers, and has been held in some cases, that an exception exists in favor of -children of tender years. The varying reasons given should lead us to doubt the solidity of the foundations upon which these cases rest, especially when none of the reasons are of recognized authority. The law has never before denied the liability of children for trespass because of tender years. On the contrary, it was intimated in Mangan v. Atterton, L. R., Exch., 239, that a four-year-old boy was a trespasser, under the circumstances of that case; and there are numerous cases cited in this opinion where liability is denied upon that, and no other, ground. The
In Gillespie v. McGowan, 100 Pa. St., 144, Paxson, J., says that the principle upon which it is sought to fasten liability on property owners would, if carried to its logical conclusion, “charge the duty of protection of children upon every member of a community except their parents.” In a very able article on the liability, of landowners to children entering without permission, by Judge Jeremiah Smith, in 11 Harvard Law Review, 349-372, he says: “If those who brought the child into the world are unable by reason of poverty, to provide him a playground, that may afford an argument for the passage of a statute imposing that duty upon the municipality, in which case every land-owner would have to contribute his proportion of the expense. But this is quite another thing from assessing upon a single unfortunate land-owner the entire damages arising from the want of such a playground.”
In some of the cases it is said that Lynch v. Nurdin, 1 Adol. & El., 29, has been overruled or at least disapproved; but in Union Pac. R. Co. v. McDonald, 152 U. S., 262, Mr. Justice Harlan, doubts the correctness of this statement, and refers to an English case in which it has been approved, and we may add that since then it has been followed in Harrold v. Watney (1898), 2 Q. B., 320; and in McDowall v. G. W. Ry. Co. (1902), 1 K. B., 618. However, we do not con
In Buch v. Amory Manufacturing Co., 69 N. H., 257, where a boy, eight years of age, unable to speak or understand English, was injured by machinery, in a very able opinion, Carpenter, C. J., says: “Actionable negligence is the neglect of a legal duty. The defendants are not liable unless they owed to the plaintiff a legal duty which they neglected to perform. With purely moral obliga
“ Tn dealing with cáses which involve injuries to children, courts * * * have sometimes strangely confounded legal obligation with sentiments that are independent of law.’ Indianapolis v. Emmelman, 108 Ind., 530. Tt is important to bear in mind, in actions for injuries to children, a very simple and fundamental fact, which in this class of cases is sometimes strangely lost sight of, viz., that no action arises without a breach of duty.’ 2 Thomp. Neg., 1183, note 3. ‘No action will lie against a spiteful man, who, seeing another running into danger, merely omits to warn him. To bring the case within the category of actionable negligence some wrongful act must be shown, or a breach of some positive duty; otherwise, a man who allows strangers to roam over his property would be held answerable for not protecting them against any danger they might
“What duties do the owners owe to a trespasser upon their premises? They may eject him, using such force and such only as is necessary for the purpose. They are bound to abstain from any other or further intentional or negligent acts of personal violence, — bound to inflict upon him by means of their own active intervention no injury which by due care they can avoid. They are not bound to warn him against hidden or secret dangers arising from the condition of the premises (Redigan v. Railroad, 135 Mass., 44, 47, 48), or to protect him against any injury that may arise from his own acts or those of other persons. In short, if they do nothing, let him entirely alone, in no manner interfere with him, he can have no cause of action against them for any injury that he may receive. On the contrary, he is liable to them for any damage that he by his unlawful meddling may cause them or their property. What greater or other legal obligation was cast upon these defendants by the circumstance that the plaintiff was (as is assumed) an irresponsible infant ?
“If landowners are not bound to warn an adult trespasser of hidden dangers, — dangers which he by ordinary care cannot discover and, therefore, cannot avoid, — on what ground can it be claimed that they must warn an infant of open and visible dangers which he is unable to appreciate? No legal distinction is perceived between the duties of the owners in one case and the other. The situation of the adult in front of secret dan-'
“There is a wide difference — a broad gulf— both in reason and' in law, between causing and preventing an injury; between doing by negligence or otherwise a wrong to one’s neighbor, and preventing him from injuring himself; between protecting him against injury by another and guarding him from injury that may accrue to him from the condition of the premises which he has unlawfully invaded. The duty to do no wrong is a legal duty. The duty to protect against wrong is, generally speaking and excepting certain intimate relations in the nature of a trust, a moral obligation only, not recognized or enforced by law. Is a spectator liable if he sees an intelligent man or an unintelligent infant running into danger and does not warn or forcibly restrain him ? What difference does it make whether the' danger is on another’s land, or upon his own, in case the man or infant is not there by his express or implied invitation? If A sees an eight-year-old boy beginning to climb into his garden over a wall stuck with spikes and does not warn him or drive him off, is he liable in damages if the boy meets with injury from the spikes? Degg, Admx., v. Railway Co., 1 H. & N., 773, 777. I see my neighbor’s two-year-old babe in dangerous proximity to the machinery of his windmill in his yard, and easily might, but do not, rescue him. I am
But it is said that the case of Harriman v. Railroad Co., 45 Ohio St., 11, applies the doctrine of the turntable cases and that ever since, for twenty years, the decision in that case has been considered by the profession as committing this court to that doctrine. If true, that would not make the doctrine a rule of property, but would entitle the case only to the same consideration that is given any other considered judgment of the court. The
In the case of Harriman v. Railroad Company, it was not necessary to a determination of the questions presented to determine whether the boy was on the railroad company’s property by 'implied invitation, or by license. It may be, as intimated in the opinion, that the conduct of the company estopped it to deny liability or to assert that the boy was a trespasser; but it was not necessary to go further, for in either case it was the duty of the company not to interpose a trap or pitfall, or a new danger, without notice or the exercise of due care. Upon this ground the judgment in that case may be vindicated, but we are not satisfied that what is there said upon the subject of invitation and license can be.
In Sturgis v. Railway Co., 72 Mich., 619, Campbell, J., says: “It is impracticable to keep off trespassers from an open track, and all who go upon it do so at their own risk of such dangers as are incidént directly to such use.” And in Hargreaves v. Deacon, Admr., 25 Mich., 1, a case in which a boy was drowned in an uncovered cistern on private premises, he says: “Cases are quite numerous in which the same questions have arisen in this case, and we have found none which hold that an accident from negligence, on private
In Turess v. N. Y. S. & W. R. R. Co., 61 N. J. L., 314, Magie, C. J., says: “Invitation which creates such a relation may be express, as when the owner or occupier of land, by words, invites another to come on it or make use of it or something thereon; or it may be implied, as when such owner or occupier, by acts or conduct, leads another to believe that the land or something thereon was intended to be used as he uses them, and that such use is not only acquiesced in by the owner or occupier, but is in accordance with the intention or design for which the way or place or thing was adapted and prepared or allowed
“It will be observed that, in the case of an implied invitation, the relation is imposed upon the owner or occupier of land only when he has done something which justifies one who enters upon the land and makes use of it or something upon it in believing that he intended such use to be made; and he who makes such use can claim the relation only when he is justified by the acts or conduct of the owner or occupier in believing that such use was intended. And entry and use by such invitation are thus distinguished from entry and use by mere permission.” And in D. L. & W. R. R. Co. v. Reich, 61 N. J. L., 635, in the court of errors and appeals, Gummere, J., says: “The viciousness of the reasoning which fixes liability upon the landowner because the child is attracted, lies in the assumption that what operates as a temptation to a person of immature mind, is, in effect, an invitation. Such an assumption is not warranted. As was said by Mr. Justice Holmes, in Holbrook v. Aldrich, 168 Mass., 16, ‘temptation is not always invitation; as the common law is understood by the most competent authorities, it does not excuse a trespass because there is a temptation to commit it, or hold property owners bound to contemplate the infraction of property rights because the temptation to untrained minds to infringe them might have been foreseen.' ”
This case owes its existence to the doctrine of the turntable cases and might be disposed of without further consideration rtpon the ruling in the preceding case, but, since it is illustrative of the consequences of adopting the turntable doctrine, it may excuse an extention of this already too lengthy opinion. Counsel for plaintiff say: “A great deal was said in the argument below, and doubtless will be said here, in regard to the so-called 'turntable cases’; the insistence that the doctrine of that so-called class of cases shall not be extended has at last reached the point of demanding that a real turntable shall be shown in any case as the best and only evidence that the principle is to be applied.
''We are contending not for a name but for a principle. We cannot produce at the bar a turntable, but if the evidence in this record tends to show that the defendant maintained an 'attractive danger,’ a corresponding obligation arose to reasonably safeguard it against the consequences to be apprehended from it to children who might be attracted by and to it.
. “The doctrine thus allowed and recognized by this court as applicable in a proper case, we expect will be adhered to in any case falling within the principle, whether the instrument of danger be a turntable or a reservoir of water.” And again, “It must be confessed here that the case from which the above quotation is made is a 'turntable’ case, and that we are unable to make profert of a turntable in.open court; nor can we produce a
In the very able article in 11 Harvard Law Review, 349, 434, Judge Jeremiah Smith, reviews all of the cases, and reaches the conclusion that the doctrine of the turntable cases is not sound. He regards the opinion in Keffe v. Milwaukee, etc., Ry. Co., 21 Minn., 207, as the ablest in support of that doctrine, and it may be, therefore, interesting to note, that in the subsequent case, Stendal v. Boyd, 73 Minn., 53, that court, by its chief justice, in a case where liability is denied' for the drowning of a little boy in a dangerous excavation filled with water, on a city lot, saj^s: “The doctrine of the turntable cases is an exception to the rule of non-liability of a landowner for accidents from visible causes to trespassers on his premises. If the exception is to be extended to this case, then the rule of non-liability as to
In this court, in Ann Arbor Railroad Co. v. Kinz, 68 Ohio St., 210, the company' owned an unfenced common in the city of Toledo. The
We may very appropriately conclude in the words of Allen, J., in Clark, Admr., v. Manchester, 62 N. H., 577: “The excavation for a reservoir was not made and filled with water for a trap, but for a lawful use by the defendants on their own land. The averment of license and invitation to the child to go there is one of argument by inference from the facts stated, and the facts positively averred do not warrant and support the inference. The fact that children went to the reservoir pit from curiosity or for pleasure, without objection of the defendants, was not an invitation or license to go there. The child was not upon the land by invitation, nor under circumstances which made it the duty of the defendants to protect him. ITe was there to gratify his curiosity, or for mere pleasure, and the defendants owed him no special duty. It was not a case of setting a trap for the children, nor one of wantonly and knowingly leading them into danger and this one into destruction. It was the ordinary case of a landowner managing, within the bounds of his own land, his own property in his own way for his own use and benefit, and though in doing this he might find occasion to construct reservoirs, provide fish-ponds, plant and cultivate fruit-trees, erect and maintain useful structures, instruments, and machinery, all of which are alluring, attractive, and dangerous to children, yet it could not be claimed that he must constantly guard these things against the approach of persons coming
In the case of Railroad Company v. Harvey,. the judgments of the circuit court and of the court of common pleas are reversed and the petition is dismissed; and in the case of Swarts v. The Akron Water Works Company, the judgment of the circuit court is affirmed.
Judgment in No. p8po reversed.
Judgment in No. 10114 affirmed.
Case-law data current through December 31, 2025. Source: CourtListener bulk data.