Court Opinion

ID: 9443182
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 19:13:23.838692+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:29:24.050734
License: Public Domain

RIVES, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
In compliance with an ordinance of the City of Opelousas, the appellee had a flagman at this railroad crossing. The sole function and duty of that flagman was to protect traffic on the street. He saw the approaching car just after he gave the signal to the engineer to come ahead. He assumed that the car would stop and either turned his back and walked across the street, or got on the pilot of the engine when it reached him and rode across. The fact that automobiles often do not stop was the occasion for requiring this crossing to be flagged in the first place. Under Louisiana law “the doctrine of the last clear chance applies just as effectively against one who should see approaching danger but fails to look for it as it does against one who actually sees it and fails to avoid it.” McCormick & Co. v. Cauley, La.App., 168 So. 783, 786.
The Louisiana law on the doctrine of last clear chance was thoroughly reviewed in the case of Eggleston v. Louisiana & A. R. Co., La.App., 192 So. 774, 780 and the rule restated as follows:
“The rule furnished by those authorities is that where a person negligently places himself in a perilous situation and his negligence and peril are actually discovered by the operator of the offending vehicle, or by the use of reasonable care should and could have been discovered, there is then a duty on the part of the operator to save that person from the consequences of the negligent act, if, by the exercise of due diligence, such can be done. If said operator, after the actual or constructive discovery of the existing peril, *548could have prevented the occurrence of an accident by the exercise of due diligence and failed to do so, such failure constitutes negligence and is considered the proximate and immediate cause of the accident and resulting injury, and the person’s negligence the remote cause; and said person may recover, although his negligence continued to the moment of the accident.”
A flagman at a railroad crossing is in a different position from the train crew. Oncoming vehicular traffic is peculiarly the subject of his protection and he cannot safely assume that it is in no need of protection. The Louisiana Supreme Court speaking of such a flagman in Roby v. Kansas City Southern R. Co., 130 La. 880, 58 So. 696, 699, said:
“The law expects him to keep on the alert, so as to be able, from the proper place and within the proper time, to give the warning expected of him, and to stop the locomotive and rolling stock or the individual citizen, on foot or in a vehicle, or all of them, as occasion may demand.”
Appellant quotes from the opinion of this court in Pollard v. Davis, 5 Cir., 93 F.2d 193, 195:
“ ‘After the train has reached the crossing, the duty of the gatekeeper or flagman ends as to that train, and such person is not negligent in then leaving the position of duty since the train itself is then sufficient warning.’ ”
Like other general statements of law, that expression must be taken in the light of the facts and circumstances under which it was made. In the case of Pollard v. Davis, supra, “it was daylight, and the weather clear” and the engine would “give more complete and effective warning than the fireman would'have given”. In the present case, the collision occurred at night and the angle of the crossing was such that the head-light of the locomotive shone away from the approaching automobile. It seems to me that it was within the province of the jury to find that if the flagman had performed the duty imposed upon him by law there would have been no collision, and therefore the jury might properly have found for the plaintiff under the doctrine of last clear chance. I therefore respectfully dissent.
Rehearing denied; Rives, C. J., dissents.