Hartman v. Western Maryland Railway Co.
Hartman v. Western Maryland Railway Co.
Opinion of the Court
Opinion by
Ivan R. Hartman, the appellee, was employed as a brakeman by the Western Maryland Railway Company, engaged in interstate commerce. On November 7, 1912, he went to Gettysburg, this State, under orders to report
One of the rules of the defendant company, offered in evidence by the plaintiff, fixed the maximum speed of a freight train such as he was on at twenty miles an hour, and in the general notice to all of the company’s employees, also offered in evidence, there is the following: “Obedience to the rules is essential to the safety of passengers and employees and the protection of property.” The plaintiff testified that the train was running at the rate of twenty-five or thirty miles an hour when it reached a curve, at which point the engineer, without any warning, suddenly put on the brakes and then instantly released them, so jarring the train that he was jolted from it. This testimony was sufficient to send the case to the jury under the federal statute, for, if
The first assignment-complains of the failure of the court to instruct the jury as to the weight to be given to the uncorroborated testimony of the plaintiff, in view of its positive contradiction by all of the witnesses called by the defendant. This assignment does not call for a reversal of the judgment. In his charge to the jury the learned trial judge specifically referred to the fact that the testimony of the plaintiff as to the rate of the train’s speed was but an expression of his own individual judgment, in which, he was not corroborated by any one; and as against his testimony the attention of the jury was called to that of the two engineers, the fireman and the other brakeman, that the rate of speed was less than nine miles an hour. If the appellant wished for fuller instructions as to the weight to be given to the testimony of the plaintiff, it should have asked for them.
The second question suggested by the appellant in the statement of questions involved is the plaintiff’s assumption of the risk of being jolted from the top of a car while the train was in motion. We do not regard this as a question before us, in. view of the following answer
The four assignments of error are overruled and the judgment is affirmed.
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- Negligence — Railroads—Operation of freight train — Weight of evidence — Corroborating facts — Act of Congress of April 22, 1908, Chap, llj.9, 85 U. 8. 8tat. 65 — Case for jury — Instructions to jury —Assumption of rislc. . 1. In an action by a brakeman against his employer, a railroad company, to recover damages for personal injuries, brought under the Act of Congress of April 22,1908, Chap. 149, 35 U. S. Stat. 65, making common carriers engaged in interstate commerce liable in damages to any employee injured, inter alia, by the negligence of another employee of such carrier, it appeared that plaintiff was injured while crossing over the top of box cars of a freight train upon which he was employed. He testified that his fall was due to unusual and violent jerks of the train caused by a speed in excess of twenty-five miles an hour, in violation of a rule of defendant company, and the negligence of the engineer in suddenly and repeatedly applying the brakes. No other witnesses testified to the excessive speed of the train, but four witnesses for the defendant testified that the speed was not in excess of nine miles an hour. It appeared that the average speed of the train for its entire route was sixteen and one-fourth miles an hour, and that the accident happened at the foot of a down grade on a short curve, just at the beginning of an up-grade, and at the end of a stretch of straight track nearly two thousand feet long. The plaintiff’s evidence as to the violent jerks of the train was also contradicted. Held, the weight of the evidence was not so clearly against the plaintiff that the court could withdraw the case from the jury, and a verdict and judgment for plaintiff was sustained. 2. In such case the alleged failure of the court to instruct the jury as to the weight to be given to the uncorroborated testimony of the plaintiff, in view of its contradiction by defendant’s witnesses, is not ground for reversal where the matter was correctly dealt with in the court’s charge and no fuller instructions were requested by the defendant. 3. In such case it could not be held as a matter of law that plaintiff had assumed the risk of the injury from which he suffered, and it was not error for the court to submit the question to the jury with instruction that plaintiff had “assumed all the obvious and open risks of his employment in the ordinary operation of the train on which he worked as brakeman, and also of such risks as to which he had been informed. Among such risks of injury should be those ordinarily and obviously existing where a brakeman in the discharge of his usual duties as such is required to walk over the tops of moving cars.”