Source: https://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-supreme-court/275/236.html
Timestamp: 2019-04-20 15:20:01+00:00

Document:
[275 U.S. 236, 238] Mr. S. P. Jones, of Marshall, Tex., for respondent.
Respondent, a United States deputy marshal, was assigned to guard Merchant, a telegraph lineman employed by petitioner, from violence by strikers. He went with Merchant to repair a telegraph line, and while returning with him on a motorcar over petitioner's railroad the car was derailed and respondent injured. Respondent brought the present suit in the District Court for Western Louisiana to recover his injuries. The trial by jury resulted in a verdict and judgment for the defendant, the petitioner here. The Circuit Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ( Ellzey v. Kansas City Southern R. Co., 12 F.(2d) 4) reversed the judgment holding that an instruction to the jury by the trial judge was erroneous.
This language suggests that the Circuit Court of Appeals thought this case to be governed by the doctrine of the last clear chance. That doctrine, rightly applied in the Chunn Case, amounts to no more than this, that a negligent defendant will be held liable to a negligent plaintiff if the defendant, aware of the plaintiff's peril or unaware of it only through carelessness, had in fact a later opportunity than the plaintiff to avert an accident. Grand Trunk Ry. v. Ives, 144 U.S. 408, 428 , 12 S. Ct. 679; Inland & Seaboard Coasting Co. v. Tolson, 139 U.S. 551, 558 , 11 S. Ct. 653. In the cases applying the rule the parties have been engaged in independent courses of negligent conduct. The classic instance is that in which the plaintiff had improvidently left his animal tied in a roadway where it was injured by the defendant's negligent operation of his vehicle. Davies v. Mann, 10 M. & W. 546. It rests on the assumption that he is the more culpable whose opportunity to avoid the injury was later.
On the facts assumed by the Circuit Court of Appeals-that Merchant was driving the car reckleassly with respondent's encouragement or acquiescence-the respondent and Merchant were engaged in a common venture which, acting together, they were carrying on in a careless manner. In such a case their courses of conduct are not sufficiently independent to let it be said that either one or the other had in fact a later opportunity to avoid the consequences of their joint negligence. Compare St. Louis & San Francisco Ry. v. Schumacher, 152 U.S. 77 , 14 S. Ct. 479; Wheelock v. Clay (C. C. A.) 13 F.(2d) 972; Kinney v. Chicago Great Western R. R. (C. C.) 17 F.(2d) 708; Denver City Tramway Co. v. Cobb (C. C. A.) 164 F. 41.

References: v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v.