Court Opinion

ID: 9443814
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 19:31:19.997513+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:29:36.902459
License: Public Domain

RIVES, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
For me to state the full facts of this case would unduly prolong this dissent, and would probably serve no useful purpose. In my opinion, the jury were authorized to find that the appellee’s twenty-four year old son had been wantonly killed by appellant’s servants. The track was a spur track abandoned in 1949 and the re-use of which had begun only a few months before the fatal accident without any new warning signs or notice to the public. There was no necessity for blocking the street. The engine with one box car attached had been stopped clear of the street, and then instead of the conductor’s walking across the street to inspect the car on the opposite side and ascertain whether it was empty, he had the engine to start again and continue its movement until the street was completely blocked by a box car and engine with the headlight of the engine admittedly not burning. As the conductor opened the door of the box car, the fatal crash occurred. Under the facts of this case, I think that the defendant’s counsel may have been well advised in not objecting to the plaintiff’s *527opening statement or to the oral charge of the District Court. Read as a whole, that charge seems to me a fair and able presentation of the issues to the jury.
The requested charge quoted in this Court’s opinion was properly refused, I think, for a number of the reasons given by the District Judge on pages 452 to 455, inclusive, of the record. If not otherwise defective, the charge would naturally lead the jury to believe that there could be no recovery if the deceased was negligent, whereas contributory negligence is not a complete defense in Georgia. I would affirm the judgment of the District Court, and therefore respectfully dissent.