Court Opinion

ID: 9828976
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 18:54:06.338073+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:42:56.015742
License: Public Domain

On Motion for a Rehearing.
Appellant insisted “that,” quoting from its eighth assignment, “there was no evidence tending to show that the engineer was guilty of negligence in releasing the air on his engine at the time he did,” and that therefore the trial court erred in submitting to the jury an issue as to negligence on his part. In disposing of the contention, it was stated in the opinion that the engineer at the time he released the air on the engine “knew that appellee was between the car and tender, engaged in uncoupling same.” In the motion the statement is challenged as unauthorized by any testimony in the record. The complaint is a just one. The testimony did not show that the engineer knew that appellee was between the car and tender. *824■However, we do not think it follows that the trial court erred in submitting an issue as to whether he was guilty of negligence as charged in the petition or not.
The engineer testified: “Before I started my engine back on this occasion, Mr. Bailey came up and told me what we were going to do, and I then knew that we had to cut the engine off from the balance of the train in order to do that work. I knew that when he went to cut the engine loose from the car that it was attached to that he would stand on the footboard to do that.” Appellee testified that at a time when the train was “just in the manner of stopping,” in obedience to a signal given by him, he turned the angle cock attached to the air brake connection on the car; that after the train stopped he waited a moment “to see if the slack would come back,” and then, standing on the footboard of the tender, endeavored ■with his right hand to turn the angle cock attached to the' engine; that, failing in his effort, he changed his position and was hurt while trying to turn the cock with his left hand; that during the time he “was making these two efforts to turn the angle cock on the tender the cars,” using his language, “were standing perfectly still,” and that the “engine came back” on him. He further testified: “Whatever a brakeman gives the engineer a signal to do, that is what the engineer is supposed to do, until he gets a signal to do something else. If you give the engineer a signal to stop, he is not supposed to move the engine until you give him a signal to that effect. After he stops in response to your signal, he is supposed to stand there until you give him a signal to move. * * * I did not give any signal to anybody to move that engine from the time I gave the signal to stop until I got hurt, and no one else of the train crew had any authority at that time to give any signal to move the train or the engine.” The witness Lytle, who was the conductor of the train, testified that “if, after the engine is stopped, the engineer should continue to hold the air that would hold everything perfectly still and if the engineer should hold the air on the engine there would be no danger to a man, even in between the cars, to make an uncoupling.” The engineer further testified: “If, after you stop your train, you hold the air on it, then there is no possibility of the engine moving one way or the other. * * * When we bring an engine to a stop by means of the application of the air, and then the angle cock is turned somewhere, that leaves the air on the engine brakes until it is released. When the air is then released on the engine, there is sometimes a slight movement of the engine in the direction in which the reverse lever is set — in the direction in which the engine was last moved. * * * On this occasion, when I received the stop signal, I applied the air and the train came to a stop, and I then released the air.”
We think the testimony recited is sufficient to show that an issue was made as to whether the engineer was guilty of negligence in releasing the air on his engine at the time he did release it, or not We do not understand the testimony to be uncontradicted, as appellant insists it was, that it was usual and customary for an engineer, under such circumstances, after stopping his engine, to release the air on it, and therefore that ap-pellee should have expected, and that the engineer had a right to assume he would expect, the movement of the engine which, appellee said, caused the injury to him. As noted above, appellee testified that the engineer, after stopping his engine in response to the signal given to him, “was supposed” not to move it again, until he was given a signal to do so.
The motion is overruled.