Opinion ID: 1800551
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Negligence of the Railroad

Text: The court of appeal noted that [i]f her [Rosalie Watson's] testimony is precisely accurate, it might have been possible for the engineer to have perceived the danger and reacted by making an emergency application of the brakes in time to stop the train or substantially reduce its speed prior to the collision. 415 So.2d 350. Not only did the trial court rely on Rosalie Watson's testimony, but the record gives no basis for doubting its veracity. Ms. Watson is apparently an uneducated person, but because of her familiarity with the area, she was able to give a graphic account of exactly what happened. In relying on Ms. Watson's testimony to the effect that the train was 2,000 feet away when Fisher approached the crossing, the trial court was giving weight to the witness' ability to relate the events to physical objects, a tall tree by the pink house, the No. 9 sign and the like. The witness lived in the immediate area and was consistent in her testimony although she admitted not knowing measurements: Feets, I don't know about no feets. (Tr. 288) The court of appeal overlooked the corroboration of Ms. Watson's testimony by MacRae's calculations and ignored the fact that the two members of the train crew responsible for stopping the train were parties-defendant. Placing considerable weight on the train crew's testimony, the court of appeal failed to realize that there was either a falsification or a serious mistake in their account. They claimed to have clocked the train's speed at forty miles per hour. However, Professor MacRae put the stopping distance for forty miles per hour at 1,290 feet and the train went 1,565 feet past the crossing. These calculations completely discredit the crew's testimony about their speed. If correct as to speed, they did not apply brakes until 275 feet past the collision site. The train crew was obviously testifying incorrectly about either the speed or about putting on the emergency brakes several car lengths before the collision. The testimony of an impartial witness, here Rosalie Watson, should have been accepted over that of the train crew, badly mistaken about basic facts. Their testimony would naturally tend to minimize their negligence. Ignoring the bias of Hadden and Walters and the testimony of Rosalie Watson, the court of appeal substituted its judgment of credibility for that of the trial court. The court of appeal also said the trial court was clearly wrong in finding a lack of proper lookout by the crew. Their own testimony mandates this finding. It is uncontradicted that none of them saw the Watson car stopped at the cross-bucks sign, and there is no dispute that it was there. While there was no legal speed limit for the train in this open country, the railroad's own speed regulation of forty-five miles per hour is evidence of the maximum safe speed in the area. See Perkins v. Texas and New Orleans Railroad Company, 243 La. 829, 147 So.2d 646 (1962) and Broussard v. Louisiana Western R. Co., 140 La. 517, 73 So. 606 (1916). The train was exceeding this limit, probably because it lacked a functioning speedometer. [4] Testimony of the train crew, in particular defendants Walters and Hadden, establishes that they did not try to stop when they first saw the Fisher vehicle on the track and merely assumed the automobile would get out of the way. They candidly admitted that they would make no effort to stop in such a situation until it was too late to do so. Walters, who was running the train, had no idea how quickly he could stop. The train could have stopped or substantially reduced its speed before hitting the Fisher vehicle. Thus, the train crew could have avoided or minimized the consequences of the accident. The record indicates that the train was traveling at an excessive speed of forty-nine to fifty miles an hour, and fireman Walters did not apply the brakes until the train was nearly on top of the Fisher car. [5] With a clear and unobstructed view of the crossing for two miles, the crew of the train observed Fisher's car on the track but did not attempt to stop. The train crew discovered Fisher's peril early enough to avert the accident and their failure to stop or slow constitutes negligence. The defective speedometer, excessive speed and operator's lack of knowledge of the train's stopping capability combined with the crew's negligence to cause the fatality at the Thomastown crossing. The accident resulted from fault on the part of the train's owner and crew. None of the other Louisiana cases are precisely on point in this situation. The court of appeal discussed Wheat v. New Orleans and Northeastern Railroad Company, 245 La. 1099, 163 So.2d 65 (1964). Wheat held that a passenger train engineer ... was not negligent in failing to realize that the automobile was not going to move off the track at the first moment it came within his vision, and therefore was not negligent in failing to take steps to stop the train at that moment. 163 So.2d 65 at 69. In the Wheat case, the car was not visible until the train was 1,000 feet from the crossing and the brakes were applied 300 or 400 feet later. Less than five seconds elapsed before the brakes were applied. According to the disinterested testimony of Rosalie Watson, this train was over 1,700 feet from the intersection when Fisher's car stalled on the track. The brakes were not applied until the train was 275 to 330 feet from the car. Even though the train in the Wheat case was traveling fifty-five or sixty miles per hour, the Wheat crew reacted in less than a third of the time that this train crew did. Wheat emphasized the engineer's duty to protect his passengers. A different and higher standard of care is required here where there is a freight train traveling at a lesser rate of speed. Considering Rosalie Watson's testimony along with Professor MacRae's, the trial court correctly found that the train could have slowed significantly or stopped if the crew had acted promptly.