Lancaster daily intelligencer. [volume] (Lancaster, Pa.) 1864-1928, 1882-03-03
Aaliraste1 fmteuiQencer.
FRIDAY EVENING, MARCH 3, 1882.
The Law OF Negligence.

state supreme court, lawyers anu layueu
will do well, in the interest of sound law
and common sense, as well as of popular
rights, when they are involved, to exam
inc tue dissenting opinion and weigh its
merits. His brethren ON the bench
executing Judge Sterrett, who sides with
him-have made decisions in the case of
Cauley VS.. the Railroad 70 W. n. c. sos,
and again in II w. n. c. 164 }, which
a correspondent of the Philadelphia Bull
letin points out are in conflict with each
other, with the principles Of law in gen
eral and particularly with the New York
court of appeals in an almost similar
case Grounds vs. the Railroad, 81 n. Y
l29). In both cases a child was hurt by
being driven from railroad car where it
was admitted to have had no business, and
the point involved was whether, though
the sufferer was there by such unlawful
or improper act of his own, that render
ed the company or its servants free from
all obligation to the child and from all
responsibility for injury attaching to
him. When the case was first before
our supreme court majority Of it held
that there could be no recovery, 1st.,
because ''the sufferer being unlawfully
upon the car the defendant company
owed it no duty, and is not liable for the
injury ;" and because public policy, or
rather humanity" required this decis.
ion, as there are many unfeeling pa7
ents who not only neglect but maltreat
their children" and "it would be cruel
to such children to lay down a rule
which would make it al object for I'M
principled parents to expose them to in
jury and death upon railroad
track" In the New York case
the court, on the other hand, far more
humanely held that " the defendant owed
him (the child no duty of care 10y rea-
son Of any special relation assumed or
existing between the company and him,
but he was entitled to be protected
against unnecessary injury by the de-
fendant or its servants in exercising the
right of removing him." Now that the
Pennsylvania court has had the Cauley
case before it the second time it changes
its reasoning somewhat and decides
against the plaintiff this time on the
ground that. rs a matter of fact, the
railroad was not negligent, because the
car from which the child was driven to
its injury could not have been so shifted
as to have acquired ga high rate of
speed AS the Bulletin's critic points
out, it is a strange proceeding for
the court to invade the province of a
jury and to declare that it was ply
sical impossibility for the car to have
peen driven too rapidly. But stranger
STILL is it for this court to decide that the
railroad was not negligent in driving a
child under the wheels of a car in
motion-unless in "rapid'' motion
when previously Gn Railroad VS..
Aspell, % Penna. St, l4O, this same
court had decided that it was negligence
in a passenger. carried past his station.
to jump from a car even while the mo-
tion of the train was only about one-half
that which an expert runner can main
tain for some distance. The court in
that case said If passenger is fool
hardy enough to Jump off without wait
ing for the train to stop, he does it at his
own risk, because this is gross impru-
dence. If there be any man
who does not know such leaps are ex =.
tremely dangerous, especially when taken
in the dark, his friends should see that
he does not travel by railroad.' Now it
is fairly submitted that if it is negli-
gencc for man to jump from car be-
fore it is stopped, it is negligence in a
railway employee to drive even tres
passing child seven years old, from a car
while its wheels are in any sort of motion.
The public will he apt to sympathize
with the Bulletins correspondent, who
concludes thus:
In one case, to be sure, it was man
who jumped; in the other only weak
little child, who was forced to. In the one
the man jumped from low step, holding
the rail. In the other the little fellow
was driven from the top of tho car,
with nothing 10 stay his feet OR aid him
to gain his balance when he struck the
ground. Tho speed was not great in either
case tue result of the rashness the same
in both. 1t is submitted that the proper
course in each case, where reasonable men
might fairly differ, was to submit tho case
with all its circumstances to a jury, and
let them say whether the ordinary care
which the law demands was exerted.
Butt will not take up further space to
prove what would seem to be almost an
axiom of the law. Many courts haye SO
hold in similar cases, even our own. See
johnson VS.. r. r.. 70, Pa. St. Rep, 357 :;
Price VS.. st. Louis, 72, Missouri, Ala
Maher VS.. r. r., 67, New York, Sc, &c.
While Intelligent courts can render such
decisions, they must not complain that
juries consider railway corporations with
mistrust and aversion, and hold them to
the strictest accountability for the de-
strnction of human life. And the citi
zen who only wishes for impartial ius-
tice may well despair of that time
ever coming, when American Judges
will, as the English do now, hold great
corporations to as rigid an accountability
for their negligent acts which have ruined
or destroyed human lives, as they do un-
fortunate citizens who, while seeking the
poor recompense which can be made for a
blasted life, for the destruction of their
power to earn an honest livelihood, or for
the loss of some loved one who
made that life valuable, are met with
the answer, "you did that which
tho courts declare only non-culp.
pabie in railroad and must bear YOUR
loss as best you may" Every one who