Summers v. Bloomsburg & Sullivan Railroad
Summers v. Bloomsburg & Sullivan Railroad
Opinion of the Court
Opinion by
The plaintiff seeks to recover damages for injuries received in a grade crossing accident and obtained a verdict and judgment in the court below. The appellant now contends that the court below erred in submitting the case to the jury, because : first, the evidence failed to established the negligence of the defendant company, and, second, it did establish the contributory negligence of the plaintiff. The accident occurred
There was no conflict in the testimony as to the opportunity which a person traveling northward upon the public road had of observing the trains of the railroad company which approached from a northeastern direction. The signal post
The learned judge of the court below, in affirming the third point submitted by defendant, instructed the jury that the only evidence that the plaintiff stopped at a point thirty feet from the track was the testimony of the plaintiff himself; that he was contradicted by seven witnesses; •“ and that the testimony of these seven witnesses is of such weight and conclusiveness that the jury cannot capriciously disregard it and accept the unsupported testimony of the plaintiff that he did stop, and that if the jury believed the testimony of the defendant’s witnesses the verdict ought to be for the defendant.”
The conflicting testimony upon this point was thus submitted to the jury in a manner of which the defendant company had no right to complain. The appellant contends that even if the plaintiff did stop at the point indicated by his testimony, the place was so manifestly not the proper one to stop under the circumstances, that it was the duty of the court to so declare and withdraw the case from the jury. It is by no means clear that the place at which plaintiff stopped was not the very best that he could have selected. Owing to the angle at which the track crossed the public highway, one of the mules which he was driving must have been very close to the track, it is at least doubtful whether it would have been prudent for him. to proceed further without stopping, and the evidence clearly indicates that there was no point more distant from the
The attempt of defendant’s counsel to prove by a mathematical demonstration that the defendant could not have stopped and looked without seeing the approaching train, is based upon the theory that the train was moving at the rate of five miles an hour. The rate at which the train was moving is by no means free from doubt. The engineer alone so testified, and the creditability of that witness was to be determined by the jury under all the circumstances. The fact that the train struck the plaintiff’s wagon so quickly after coming round the
The assertion that the plaintiff knew there was a train then due at the crossing is not sustained by the evidence. All the witnesses agree that the train was behind time. Had it been on time it would have passed before the plaintiff came in sight of the crossing. There was no evidence that the defendant was aware the train was behind time, and he himself testifies that he believed it had passed.
A careful consideration of the testimony convinces us that upon all the questions material to this issue there was a substantial conflict of testimony, and it was the duty of the court to submit the case to the jury: McNeal v. Pittsburg, etc., Railway Company, 131 Pa. 184; Davidson v. Lake Shore, etc., Railway Co., 171 Pa. 522.
The judgment is affirmed.
Dissenting Opinion
dissenting:
The important question in this case is as to the contributory negligence of the plaintiff. He alleged injury to his team and himself caused by the negligence of the defendant railroad company at a point where the public highway crossed the railroad track in the town of Bloomsburg. It was proved and conceded at the trial that this was one of the most dangerous railroad crossings .within the state of Pennsylvania. On the night of the accident a train was due at this point at about six o’clock in the evening of January 29, 1900, when of course it was dark. The train causing the accident was coming from the north, and as it approached this highway, the track was in a cut which completely obscured the train until it came very near to the crossing. On this night the wind was blowing from the defendant towards the approaching train so that any noise made by the train could not be heard, and the plaintiff claimed, was not heard
The plaintiff testified that his view of the approaching train was cut off by a bluff rising from six to 100 feet, and that looking for the train would give no knowledge of its approach; that on a windy day neither whistle nor bell nor rumble of a train could be heard at the point where he claims to have stopped; that a high wind was blowing, and that he stopped for only a second or two. The question arises, did he use ordinary care in his attempt to cross the railroad track at almost the precise time that a train was due at that point ?
Mrs. Bessie Deihl and several other witnesses knew that the train had not passed this point, and that in driving across the railroad at that time, the plaintiff was in danger of being injured. Mrs. Deihl says she ran after the plaintiff and tried to stop him. Mrs. Casey testified that she called to him. In short it appears that everybody in that vicinity who observed the plaintiff appreciated that he was in danger if he drove on the track, and yet he went upon the track after stopping as he says, one or two seconds, at a point thirty feet from the track.
The testimony of the engineer, his own witness, is as follows: “ Q. At point E, seventy-five feet from the crossing, how far could a traveler see the track eastwardly ? A. When I was standing at E, I placed a man on the track; he could just see me when I was forty feet from station two. Q. At point D, which is forty feet from the crossing, how far could you see up the track? A. I could see my man sixty-six feet. Q. At station C, which is seventeen feet from the crossing, how far could you see up the track ? A. I could see my man 112 feet. Q. At station B, which is ten feet from the crossing, how far could you see ? A. One hundred and fifty feet. Q. Did you make any observation standing at station two, which is the middle of the track? A. At station two the track was visible for 200 feet. Q. Standing on the track itself? A. Standing in the middle of the track, the track was visible for 200 feet.”
The plaintiff testifies that at the time he drove upon the track he saw the light of the approaching train. It therefore appears
In my opinion this case furnishes a much stronger example of contributory negligence on the part of the plaintiff than Knox, Appellant, v. Phila. & Reading Ry. Co., 202 Pa. 504. In that case the plaintiff was denied the right to go to the jury on account of his own negligence, and yet it seems to me that his testimony made a stronger case than the one under consideration. I find myself unable to agree with my associates, that
In addition to this a careful examination of the evidence does not convince me that the defendant company was guilty of any negligence in relation to this plaintiff. He was perfectly familiar with the danger of this crossing; he had known it for many years; the train was running at the rate of about five miles per hour; the whistle had been sounded and the bell rung and the headlight was burning and the train was nearly on time and the persons in charge of it had a right to assume that a man who was perfectly familiar with this crossing would not drive upon it at the time and in the manner that the plaintiff did. I am convinced that a proper consideration of the evidence ought to clear the defendant from the charge of negligence, which was necessary to carry the case to the jury.
Case-law data current through December 31, 2025. Source: CourtListener bulk data.