Source: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/292/98/
Timestamp: 2019-04-24 21:52:12+00:00

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Justia › US Law › US Case Law › US Supreme Court › Volume 292 › Pokora v. Wabash Railway Co.
What a reasonable person will do depends on the specific circumstances, and that evaluation is properly assigned to a jury.
Wabash Railway Co. operated four tracks at a railroad crossing. The driver of a truck approaching the crossing, Pokora, found that his view of the tracks to the north was blocked by boxcars on the first track. He stopped the truck to look and listen, but he did not get out of the truck to look down the tracks. Since he saw and heard nothing from inside his truck, Pokora proceeded cautiously onto the main track. A train coming from the north struck his truck.
Rather than allowing the jury to decide the case, the trial judge issued a directed verdict for the defendant. It ruled that Pokora's conduct showed that he was contributorily negligent, which at the time was a comprehensive bar against recovering damages.
Whether the conduct in this situation amounted to contributory negligence is a close factual question that should be resolved by a jury. It was not so obviously negligent that reasonable people could not reach different conclusions. More evidence would be needed to determine what would have been safe precautions for Pokora to take.
This decision reiterates the importance of leaving factual determinations to a jury rather than a judge in deciding whether certain conduct is appropriate. Judges are responsible only for framing legal rules rather than flexible standards, especially since norms of behavior can change over time.
1. The burden of establishing the defense of contributory negligence in a personal injuries case is on the defendant. P. 292 U. S. 100.
2. Upon a motion by the defendant for a directed verdict, made at the close of the plaintiff's case in chief, and based upon the ground of contributory negligence, the evidence must be viewed in the light most favorable to the plaintiff and all inferences from it which the jury might reasonably draw in his favor are to be assumed. P. 292 U. S. 100.
3. The proposition that a driver of an automobile, before crossing a railroad of which his view is obstructed, must get out of his vehicle and inspect the track if he cannot otherwise be sure that a train is not dangerously near, cannot be accepted as a general rule of law. Baltimore & Ohio R. Co. v. Goodman, 275 U. S. 66, limited. Pp. 292 U. S. 102, 292 U. S. 106.
(1) That the question whether, in the circumstances, it was negligence to go forward in reliance on the sense of hearing unaided by sight, was a question for the jury. P. 292 U. S. 101.
5. A standard of prudent conduct declared by courts a a rule of law must be taken over from the facts of life, and must be such that a failure to conform to it is negligence so obvious and certain that rational and candid minds could not deem it otherwise. P 292 U. S. 104.
Certiorari, 290 U.S. 624, to review the affirmance of a judgment for the Railway Company, entered on a directed verdict in Pokora's action for personal injuries.
John Pokora, driving his truck across a railway grade crossing in the city of Springfield, Ill., was struck by a train and injured. Upon the trial of his suit for damages, the District Court held that he had been guilty of contributory negligence, and directed a verdict for the defendant. The Circuit Court of Appeals (one judge dissenting) affirmed, 66 F.2d 166, resting its judgment on the opinion of this Court in B. & O. R. Co. v. Goodman, 275 U. S. 66. A writ of certiorari brings the case here.
Pokora was an ice dealer, and had come to the crossing to load his truck with ice. The tracks of the Wabash Railway are laid along Tenth street, which runs north and south. There is a crossing at Edwards street running east and west. Two ice depots are on opposite corners of Tenth and Edward streets, one at the northeast corner, the other at the southwest. Pokora, driving west along Edwards street, stopped at the first of these corners to get his load of ice, but found so many trucks ahead of him that he decided to try the depot on the other side of the way. In this crossing of the railway, the accident occurred.
The defendant has four tracks on Tenth street; a switch track on the east, then the main track, and then two switches. Pokora, as he left the northeast corner where his truck had been stopped, looked to the north for approaching trains. He did this at a point about ten or fifteen feet east of the switch ahead of him. A string of box cars standing on the switch, about five to ten feet from the north line of Edwards street, cut off his view of the tracks beyond him to the north. At the same time, he listened. There was neither bell nor whistle. Still listening, he crossed the switch, and, reaching the main track, was struck by a passenger train coming from the north at a speed of twenty-five to thirty miles an hour.
a substantial distance, till the train was so near that escape had been cut off. Cf. Dobson v. St. Louis S.F. Ry. Co., 223 Mo.App. 812, 822, 10 S.W.2d 528; Turner v. Minneapolis, St. P. & S.S.M. R. Co., 164 Minn. 335, 341, 205 N.W. 213.
statutory signals did not exhaust the defendant's duty when, to its knowledge, there was special danger to the traveler through obstructions on the roadbed narrowing the field of vision. Wright v. St. Louis-S.F. Ry. Co., 327 Mo. 557, 566, 37 S.W.2d 591; Hires v. Atlantic City R. Co., 66 N.J.Law, 30, 48 A. 1002; Cordell v. N.Y.C. & H.R. Co., 70 N.Y. 119. All this the plaintiff, like any other reasonable traveler, might fairly take into account. All this must be taken into account by us in comparing what he did with the conduct reasonably to be expected of reasonable men. Grand Trunk R. Co. v. Ives, 144 U. S. 408, 144 U. S. 417; Flannelly v. Delaware & Hudson Co., 225 U. S. 597.
The argument is made, however, that our decision in B. & O. R. Co. v. Goodman, supra, is a barrier in the plaintiff's path, irrespective of the conclusion that might commend itself if the question were at large. There is no doubt that the opinion in that case is correct in its result. Goodman, the driver, traveling only five or six miles an hour, had, before reaching the track, a clear space of eighteen feet within which the train was plainly visible. [Footnote 2] With that opportunity, he fell short of the legal standard of duty established for a traveler when he failed to look and see. This was decisive of the case. But the court did not stop there. It added a remark, unnecessary upon the facts before it, which has been a fertile source of controversy.
"In such circumstances, it seems to us that, if a driver cannot be sure otherwise whether a train is dangerously near, he must stop and get out of his vehicle, although obviously he will not often be required to do more than to stop and look."
not now inquire into the existence of a duty to stop, disconnected from a duty to get out and reconnoitre. The inquiry, if pursued, would lead us into the thickets of conflicting judgments. [Footnote 3] Some courts apply what is often spoken of as the Pennsylvania rule, and impose an unyielding duty to stop, as well as to look and listen, no matter how clear the crossing or the tracks on either side. See, e.g., Benner v. Philadelphia & Reading R. Co., 262 Pa. 307, 105 A. 283; Thompson v. Pennsylvania R. Co., 215 Pa. 113, 64 A. 323; Hines v. Cooper, 205 Ala. 70, 88 So. 133; cf. Pennsylvania R. Co. v. Yingling, 148 Md. 169, 129 A. 36. Other courts, the majority, adopt the rule that the traveler must look and listen, but that the existence of a duty to stop depends upon the circumstances, and hence generally, even if not invariably, upon the judgment of the jury. See, e.g., Judson v. Central Vermont R. Co., 158 N.Y. 597, 605-606, 53 N.E. 514, and cases cited; Love v. Fort Dodge R. Co., 207 Iowa, 1278, 1286, 224 N.W. 815; Turner v. Minneapolis R. Co., supra; Wisconsin & Arkansas Lumber Co. v. Brady, 157 Ark. 449, 454, 248 S.W. 278; cf. Metcalf v. Central Vermont R. Co., 78 Conn. 614, 63 A. 633; Gills v. N.Y. C. & St.L. R. Co., 342 Ill. 455, 174 N.E. 523. The subject has been less considered in this Court, but in none of its opinions is there a suggestion that, at any and every crossing, the duty to stop is absolute, irrespective of the danger. Not even in B. & O. R. Co. v. Goodman, supra, which goes farther than the earlier cases, is there support for such a rule. To the contrary, the opinion makes it clear that the duty is conditioned upon the presence of impediments whereby sight and hearing become inadequate for the traveler's protection. Cf. Murray v. So. Pacific Co., 177 Cal. 1, 10, 169 P. 675; Williams v. Iola Electric R. Co., 102 Kan. 268, 271, 170 P. 397.
Choice between these diversities of doctrine is unnecessary for the decision of the case at hand. Here, the fact is not disputed that the plaintiff did stop before he started to cross the tracks. If we assume that, by reason of the box cars, there was a duty to stop again when the obstructions had been cleared, that duty did not arise unless a stop could be made safely after the point of clearance had been reached. See, e.g., Dobson v. St. Louis-S.F. Ry. Co., supra. For reasons already stated, the testimony permits the inference that the truck was in the zone of danger by the time the field of vision was enlarged. No stop would then have helped the plaintiff if he remained seated on his truck, or so the triers of the facts might find. His case was for the jury unless, as a matter of law, he was subject to a duty to get out of the vehicle before it crossed the switch, walk forward to the front, and then, afoot, survey the scene. We must say whether his failure to do this was negligence so obvious and certain that one conclusion and one only is permissible for rational and candid minds. Grand Trunk Ry. Co. v. Ives, supra.
it seems that this one was, at all events as far as the station, about five blocks to the north. A train traveling at a speed of thirty miles an hour will cover a quarter of a mile in the space of thirty seconds. It may thus emerge out of obscurity as the driver turns his back to regain the waiting car, and may then descend upon him suddenly when his car is on the track. Instead of helping himself by getting out, he might do better to press forward with all his faculties alert. So a train at a neighboring station, apparently at rest and harmless, may be transformed in a few seconds into an instrument of destruction. At times, the course of safety may be different. One can figure to oneself a roadbed so level and unbroken that getting out will be a gain. Even then, the balance of advantage depends on many circumstances, and can be easily disturbed. Where was Pokora to leave his truck after getting out to reconnoitre? If he was to leave it on the switch, there was the possibility that the box cars would be shunted down upon him before he could regain his seat. The defendant did not show whether there was a locomotive at the forward end, or whether the cars were so few that a locomotive could be seen. If he was to leave his vehicle near the curb, there was even stronger reason to believe that the space to be covered in going back and forth would make his observations worthless. One must remember that, while the traveler turns his eyes in one direction, a train or a loose engine may be approaching from the other.
tests or regulations that are fitting for the commonplace or normal. In default of the guide of customary conduct, what is suitable for the traveler caught in a mesh where the ordinary safeguards fail him is for the judgment of a jury. Dolan v. D. & H.C. Co., 71 N.Y. 285, 288-289; Davis v. N.Y.C. & H.R. Co., 47 N.Y. 400, 402. The opinion in Goodman's case has been a source of confusion in the federal courts to the extent that it imposes a standard for application by the judge, and has had only wavering support in the courts of the states. [Footnote 4] We limit it accordingly.
The judgment should be reversed, and the cause remanded for further proceedings in accordance with this opinion.
"Every railroad corporation shall cause a bell of at least thirty pounds weight, and a steam whistle placed and kept on each locomotive engine, and shall cause the same to be rung or whistled by the engineer or fireman at the distance of at least eighty rods from the place where the railroad crosses or intersects any public highway, and shall be kept ringing or whistling until such highway is reached."
For a full statement of the facts, see the opinion of the Circuit Court of Appeals, 10 F.2d 58, 59.
The cases are collected in 1 A.L.R. 203 and 41 A.L.R. 405.
Many cases are collected in 43 Harvard Law Review 926, 929, 930, and in 56 A.L.R. 647 note.
See also Dobson v. St. Louis-S.F. R. Co., supra; Key v. Carolina & N.W. R. Co., supra; Gills v. N.Y. C. & St.L. R. Co., supra; Georgia Railroad & Banking Co. v. Stanley, supra; Miller v. N.Y.C. R. Co., 226 App.Div. 205, 208, 234 N.Y.S. 560; 252 N.Y. 546, 170 N.E. 137; Schrader v. N.Y. C. & St.L. R. Co., 254 N.Y. 148, 151, 172 N.E. 272; Dolan v. D. & H.C. Co., supra; Huckshold v. St.L., I.M. & S. R. Co., 90 Mo. 548, 2 S.W. 794. Contra: Koster v. Southern Pacific Co., 207 Cal. 753, 762, 279 P. 788; Vaca v. Southern Pacific Co., 91 Cal.App. 470, 475, 267 P. 346; Davis v. Pere Marquette R. Co., 241 Mich. 166, 169, 216 N.W. 424; cf. Torgeson v. Missouri-K.-T. R. Co., supra.

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