Court Opinion

ID: 9442566
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 18:51:55.255705+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:29:08.304048
License: Public Domain

JOHNSEN, Circuit Judge
(dissenting in -part).
My concern is with the holding of the •majority opinion that the failure of the •driver to get out of his stalled car and to a position of safety before he was struck "by the train was contributory negligence as .a matter of law, since it would have been possible for him to have seen and heard in time to have averted the injury, if he "had sufficiently applied his faculties to that .end.
The opinion thus; declares a motorist in Illinois, whose vehicle has become stalled upon a railroad crossing, subject to the same absolute standard of conduct that is applicable in that State to a motorist who is simply crossing a track, with no problem on his hands except that of guiding his vehicle over the crossing. The Illinois cases relied upon as supporting the legal absolutism laid down are all approaching-vehicle cases and not stalled-car situations. Since there is no express holding by the Illinois courts upon the proposition, the view taken is of course simply an appraisal of what the courts of that State would hold in stalled-car situations. I am unable to persuade myself that this appraisal of the majority is sound.
It is fundamental that no absolutism should be laid down by any court for human conduct, except where it is possible to say with natural or experiential certainty that the prescription made is what the ordinary prudent man would or would not have done in such a situation and so represents what all men must or must not do.
I do not believe it to be a legal certainty that the ordinary prudent motorist, who is caught in the unexpected and uncomfortable situation of being stalled upon a railroad crossing, normally will or even naturally can apply his faculties to the task of watching and listening for trains in the same full free measure as where he is simply approaching a track in untroubled fashion and proceeding over it. I should rather suspect that the instinctive reaction of normal persons generally, in such a situation would be to try to get their automobile started again. And I am not prepared to hold as a matter of law that such a motorist has no margin of right to give a thought to the safety of his property, in addition to that of himself, and even perhaps to entertain a little concern about preventing a wreck and the possibility of injury to those upon an engine or train that might approach.
But if a stalled motorist cannot in the least escape the effect of applying his faculties to anything except saving himself from injury, then he may not attempt to get his car off the track, either to preserve it or *1014to prevent the possibility of injury to others, except at his own risk, since any wrestling with his starter and gears will necessarily absorb and divert some of his faculties. If he is entitled to make any such effort at all, then such variations in absorption and diversion of faculties manifestly will be involved as to make impossible the application of any absolute rule of conduct and to compel that the line between over-application and under-attention as a matter of human action in the particular situation be left to a jury to draw.
Common sense and normal human action seem to me to dictate that a motorist has some degree of right to try to get his stalled-car off the track. The question of how far he should be permitted to go is not soundly answered by saying that he must never get hurt. How far he properly may go, like any other situation in life where relative factors are involved, cannot soundly be judged on the basis of the result alone but can only fairly be arrived at by a balancing of all the circumstances in their setting.
For these reasons, I think the question of contributory negligence in a general stalled-car situation is not one of law but of fact. And this, I am satisfied, is the generally recognized rule. In other states, where the same strict standard is applied as in Illinois, of holding a motorist guilty of contributory negligence as a matter of law when he is simply crossing a track, where he could have looked and listened and would have seen qnd heard, the question of contributory negligence in stalled-car situations has not been treated as being within the operation of this rule but as being generally a matter for the jury. Among these are Broad v. Pennsylvania R. Co., 357 Pa. 478, 55 A.2d 359; Marfilues v. Philadelphia & R. R. Co., 227 Pa. 281, 75 A. 1072; Moore v. Atlantic Coast Line R. Co., 201 N.C. 26, 158 S.E. 556; Sutter v. Pere Marquette Ry. Co., 230 Mich. 489, 202 N.W. 967; Schaaf v. Coen, 131 Ohio St. 279, 2 N.E.2d 605. I do not believe that the Illinois courts would' any more apply the rule of approaching-vehicle cases to stalled-car situations than has been doné in these other states.
I think the case should be remanded for a new trial generally on the issue of ordinary negligence and plaintiff’s contributory negligence in relation thereto.