Case Name: JONES v. KANSAS CITY SOUTHERN RY. CO.
Court: Louisiana Supreme Court
Jurisdiction: Louisiana
Decision Date: 1918-01-28
Citations: 143 La. 307
Docket Number: No. 22472
Parties: JONES v. KANSAS CITY SOUTHERN RY. CO.
Judges: 
Reporter: Louisiana Reports
Volume: 143
Pages: 307–315

Head Matter:
(78 South. 568)
No. 22472.
JONES v. KANSAS CITY SOUTHERN RY. CO.
(Jan. 28, 1918.
On Rehearing, April 29, 1918.)
(Syllabus by Editorial Staff.)
1. New Trial &wkey;5(L72 — Verdict—Amount.
Although the jury on a second trial, ordered mainly to permit defendant to show contributory negligence, was not bound by the verdict found in the previous trial, it could not increase amount of recovery on the ground that defendant, alleging contributory negligence on the part of a deceased employé, failed to produce any evidence thereof, which inferentially it protended to be able to produce when it strenuously complained of the ruling under which such testimony was excluded.
2. Appeal and Error <&wkey;1175(2) — Termination op Issues — Instructions.
In civil cases the Supreme Court will apply the law which is pertinent to the facts and proceed to a proper and final decision of all the issues regardless of the instructions given to the jury.
On Rehearing.
(Syllabus by the Court.)
3. Courts <@=^97(5) — Death <&wkey;95(3) — Federal Employers’ Liability Aci>-Amount of Recovery.
The state courts are obliged, by rulings of the Supreme Court of the United States, to fix the amount of compensation, if compensation be due to the beneficiaries of a deceased employé, under the federal Employers’ Liability Act (Act April 22, 1908, c. 149, 35 Stat. 65 [U. S. Comp. St. 1916, §§ 8657-S665]), at the present or cash value of what the employ'd might reasonably have contributed to the support of the beneficiaries during the term of his life expectancy, according to the evidence. The right of recovery being limited to the pecuniary loss, that loss is to be determined or computed by discounting the lost future benefits, at a fair or reasonable rate at which the money might be loaned or invested safely at interest, for each year of the life expectancy.
4. Death <&wkey;95(3) — Federal Employers’ Liability Act — Damages—Life Expectancy.
In determining the life expectancy of a locomotive engineer, according to the expectation table constructed from the American Experience Table of Mortality, the court adopts the rule of the insurance companies of adding eight years to the age of the man because of his hazardous occupation.
5. Death <&wkey;95(3) — Federal Employers’ Liability Act — Value of Future Benefits —Computation.
The formula adopted in this case for computing the present value of future benefits lost by the beneficiaries of a deceased employé in awarding compensation under the federal Employers’ Liability Act is as follows, viz.: Subtract from the annual wages the employé was earning the annual cost of his maintenance, according to the evidence, and multiply the remainder by the number of years of his life expectancy. The result discounted at the legal rate of 5 per cent, for the term of the life expectancy, using annual periods or rests, is the loss of future benefits reduced to present value.
(Additional Syllabus by Editorial Staff.)
6. Death &wkey;>105 — Verdict — Apportioning Damages.
The jury is not required by the federal Employers’ Liability Act to apportion the award of damages among the beneficiaries of the deceased employé.
Appeal from First Judicial District Court, Parish of Caddo; T. F. Bell, Judge.
Action by Mrs. Nora M. Jones, administratrix of estate of Thos. A. Jones, against the Kansas City Southern Railway Company. Judgment for plaintiff, and defendant appeals.
Judgment reduced, and as amended affirmed.
S. W. Moore, of Kansas City, Mo., and Alexander & Wilkinson, of Shreveport, for appellant. Otis W. Bullock and Blanchard & Smith, all of Shreveport, for appellee.

Opinion:
LECHE, J.
Plaintiff in this suit prays for the recovery of damages in the sum of $30,-000 for the benefit of herself as widow, and for the benefit of her minor children, alleged to have been suffered on account of the death of Thomas A. Jones, her late husband and father of her said children.
She charges that her said husband, who was a locomotive engineer in the employ of defendant company, was killed while so em ployed in a collision and wreck on defendant's railroad near the city of Shreveport, said collision and wreck being caused by the gross negligence and carelessness of the said defendant and its employes. The defendant being an interstate commerce carrier, plaintiff based her cause of action on the act of Congress which regulates the liability of employers for personal injuries to their employes. Defendant, after unsuccessfully attempting to remove the case to the United States District Court, answered plaintiff's demand, and was after due trial condemned to pay plaintiff the sum of $17,500. That judgment was appealed to this court, and was affirmed. See 137 La. 178, 68 South. 401.
The case was then brought by writ of error to the United States Supreme Court, and that tribunal reversed our decree on the ground that we had committed error in ruling that evidence of contributory negligence rejected by the trial court for a wrong reason was nevertheless properly excluded, because it was not offered for the specific purpose of mitigating damages, there being no local rule requiring counsel, without inquiry from the court, to announce in advance the purpose for which evidence is tendered. The cause was then remanded to the trial court, in order to afford defendant an opportunity to show, if it could, that deceased had contributed to his death by his own negligence.
Pursuant to the decree of the United States Supreme Court, the case was again tried in the district court for the parish of Caddo, and a verdict was then rendered in favor of plaintiff in the sum of $26,500, and the present appeal is from a judgment based upon that verdict.
Opinion,
Defendant alleges error on the part of the trial judge in his instructions to the jury. It complains of the failure of the jury to apply, the law as charged by the judge, and it also complains of the conclusions of fact reached by this court in its former opinion.
On the last trial, which was ordered mainly for the purpose of permitting it to show contributory negligence on the part of Jones, the deceased, defendant signally failed to establish such contributory negligence. It may be the failure on its part to offer any testimony to that effect which inferentially it pretended to be able to produce, when it so strenuously complained of the ruling under which such testimony was declared inadmissible, that induced the jury to increase the original award of damages from $17,500 to $26,500. While the jury in the last trial was in no manner bound by the verdict found in the previous trial, yet, if we are correct in our surmise as to the cause which brought about the substantial increase in the amount awarded, such increase can certainly not be justified on any such ground. That would be penalizing a litigant for availing himself of a defense to which the United States' Supreme Court has declared him legally entitled.
We understand defendant's 'complaint in regard to the instructions given to the jury by the trial judge is not made with a view of having the case remanded. It is now well settled that in civil cases the court will apply the law which is pertinent to the facts, and proceed, to a proper and final decision of all the issues, regardless of the instructions which may have been given by the trial judge to the jury, but this complaint is made in order to substantiate the charge of serious error on the part of the jury in its appreciation of the evidence and in awarding plaintiff such a large amount of damages.
The questions of fact at issue herein were thoroughly investigated by this court on the previous appeal, and a reconsideration thereof as they are presented in the original record, as well as in the present one, has only served to confirm us in the conclusions which we then reached. Defendant contends that we erred when we characterized the movement of the loaded box car which came in collision with the passenger train and caused the death of Jones as resulting from a flying switch. Technically speaking, that was error, but in actual effect it is even more dangerous, and therefore it was greater negligence on the part of defendant to have permitted the loaded box car to be put in motion by gravitation on a descending grade, called in railroad parlance "high lining," than to have imparted that motion on a level track, by means of a locomotive, in order to make a "flying switch."
We are firmly of the opinion that the collision which caused the death of Jones was the result of gross negligence on the part of defendant, and that plaintiff is entitled to recover compensation. The amount of that compensation, due regard being had to the purposes of the law, cannot be fixed with any mathematical certainty, and it is left more or less to the discretion of the courts.
We are most earnestly asked to establish some fixed rule by which it might be gauged, but that function being more properly legislative than judicial, we are unwilling to assume it, however desirable and beneficial such a rule might be.
The original award of $17,500 made by the jury on the,first trial was approved by this court as fair and just, apd we see no good reason either to increase or diminish it, and so believing and for the reasons stated.
It is ordered that the amount of the judgment appealed from be reduced from $26,-500, to $17,500, and, as thus amended, that it be affirmed.