Court Opinion

ID: 9421506
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 22:58:32.50407+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:22:30.732615
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Harlan,
whom Mr. Justice Whittaker joins,
dissenting.
The facts of this case, as summarized by District Judge Cecil, are these:
“On October 7,1950, Boyd R. Ringhiser, the plaintiff herein, arose in the afternoon, made preparation to report for duty at 4:45 p. m., had a bowel movement, made a mental calculation and thereby set in motion a chain of events which created a result both unusual and tragic.
“The sequence of these events is as follows: The plaintiff’s bowel movement was unsatisfactory; 'This won’t do,’ said he to himself (statement made by plaintiff at trial, but ordered stricken); he took a *905dose of salts and washed it down with sweet cider; he got in his car and drove to Parson’s Yard, the switching yard of the defendant, and had a bowel movement at the roundhouse. He then got on his engine and maneuvered it to track twelve, where it was coupled on to a train scheduled for Walbridge Yard at Toledo. While sitting in his engine waiting for his air brake test, he had an urgent call of nature and ‘had to go quick.’ He dismounted from his locomotive cab to go to a toilet a short distance west. A long train of empties passed between him and the object of his immediate attention. He could not wait for this train to pass and went to No. 8 switch track and climbed into a low-sided "gondola car to answer his call of nature. While thus engaged, a yard crew switched two cars into No. 8 switch track. These cars came in contact with the car ahead of plaintiff’s car and it likewise came in contact with plaintiff’s car. The gondola car in which plaintiff had taken his position was loaded with steel plates and when the cars made contact the plates shifted, caught plaintiff’s right leg and crushed it so that a few days later, it had to be amputated.”
On these facts I do not think the accident was a reasonably foreseeable consequence of any act or omission of the railroad. I therefore dissent.