Court Opinion

ID: 9468688
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 02:20:57.893485+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:40:59.828387
License: Public Domain

TATE, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
I respectfully dissent. I am unable to find clearly erroneous the district court’s determination that this crossing at issue was extrahazardous and thus required extra means of warning beyond the unilluminated fixed railroad warning signs by the side of the road — that concededly are not sufficient to warn night motorists that an ultrahazardous railroad crossing ahead may pose a not-to-be-anticipated death-dealing barrier across the roadway. In the case of an extraordinarily hazardous crossing, the oncoming night motorist in modern high-speed travel conditions is not negligent for failing to anticipate or to readily observe an obscured railway gondola across the tracks, in the absence of alerting lights, warning bells, or flashing signals.
The majority’s analysis that dissects some aspects of the evidence, I respectfully suggest, fails to put into total context the extreme hazard to the traveling public created at night by this crossing. The railroad crossing was over an access road running north-south and parallel to a raised Interstate Highway. The train came out from the west under the Interstate Highway and then turned to the north on tracks paralleling the access road.
The hazardous nature of the crossing can be more clearly appreciated if we visualize a night motorist proceeding southward on the access road: on the parallel tracks to his left, he could see the headlights on a northbound locomotive (the only lighted evidence of the presence of the train) drawing a line of gondolas several hundred feet in length; but he could not readily anticipate that the train on the tracks to his left curved rightward across his path several hundred feet to his front, in order to go under the Interstate embankment to his right that contra-indicated any railroad crossing. Extra warnings by way of flares would clearly be required to protect such a motorist, in my opinion. Likewise, although the extraordinary hazard is not so readily apparent, an oncoming northbound motorist (such as the plaintiff’s decedent), using ordinary care, could not reasonably be expected to anticipate, without exceptional altering warning, that from under the embanked Interstate Highway to his left could emerge crossing tracks upon which an obscured and unilluminated line of railroad cars thus posed an extraordinary hazard to his safe passage of the highway. Under these circumstances, I certainly do not believe that a reviewing court can find clearly erroneous the district court’s appreciation and finding that the crossing was extraordinarily hazardous at nighttime.
Here, furthermore, evidence credited by the district court was to tile effect that the railroad company did in fact customarily place flares when using the crossing at night, thus recognizing the. extraordinary hazard to the night motorist so created. If the plaintiff’s decedent motorist was aware *109that the railroad customarily flared the crossing when obstructed by its trains at nighttime, he was entitled to rely upon such customary warning.1 Under well-settled principle, applying the presumption of ordinary care in favor of a decedent whom death has silenced from testifying in his own behalf, the district court was entitled to assume that the decedent relied upon this customary warning, which on this occasion was negligently not given.
I will conclude by quoting the findings of the distinguished and experienced trial judge. Before doing so, however, I must further note that I do not read the record as devoid of evidence supporting the trial judge’s conclusions that, despite the railroad-favoring testimony of the three railroad-employee witnesses, the railroad did customarily place warning flares to alert oncoming night motorists of the extraordinary hazard posed by its nighttime railroad use.
The majority admits that two brakemen testified that they customarily did place such flares for safety reasons (although apparently the majority finds this evidence insufficient because they also testified that they were not- aware of any instructions to use flares). In finding that there was no “policy” to put out flares, the majority construes the testimony of the third railroad witness, Conductor Lewis, as based upon instructions that flares were to be placed only when trains were pushed (backed) across the access road, not when they were pulled. While I believe it to be essentially immaterial to the issue (i.e., whether the district court was clearly erroneous in finding that the railroad customarily placed warning flares when it used the crossing at night), as I read Conductor Lewis’s testimony, Tr. 140-42, it can be read as admitting at one point that “[pjrobably Mr. Stover [the terminal superintendent] wanted flares on the crossing due to the fact we were switching cars at night,” Tr. 141, and ordering the flares placed “due to the fact of working after hours of darkness,” Tr. 142. I am unable to find clearly erroneous the district court’s factual inference drawn from this testimony that the railroad customarily placed flares when using the crossing at night, due to the danger thereby created.
I therefore agree with the district court’s findings and reasoning to the effect that the extrahazardous nature of the crossing required extra warnings, that some were customarily given by flares, and that on the occasion of the decedent’s death the railroad had negligently failed to afford such additional warning. As the district court stated:
Defendant’s counsel has conceded during oral argument that if the train had been backing across the track, and there had been no flares thrown, his client would be responsible, because “at that point the train, for all practical purposes, is moving blind.” But he reminds us that the accident did not occur this way, and argues that “once the train begins to move out pulling cars, nose up, headlight going, whistle and bell in front, ... there’s nothing about this crossing that is any more hazardous than any other crossing.”
At this point, it is appropriate to look at the facts in this case. When the accident *110occurred the three engines had already crossed the access road, were rounding a curve, and were headed the same general direction in which the deceased was traveling. The train’s only lights and warning signals were on the engines, which were approximately 210 feet away from the scene of the collision, and there were no flares on the roadway. There were no lights on the dump cars, and there was testimony to the effect that low beam headlights on an automobile traveling at the speed limit of 45 miles per hour would not provide a motorist sufficient time to stop before hitting the train. Since it is undisputed that the crossing was dark when the accident occurred, the cars on the train were blindly moving forward over the access road without flares to the same extent that they may have blindly backed up over the same crossing earlier without flares, thus making the crossing extrahazardous on both occasions.
But this is not all. The defendant itself, acting through a terminal superintendant, posted instructions that no trains were to be pushed across the crossing at night without flares being placed on the roadway, thus recognizing the inherent danger of the crossing at night when the train is “moving blind.” In addition, two brakemen who regularly worked at the crossing agreed that it could not be safely used for switching cars at night without flares.
The defendant has relied upon a number of Texas cases which hold that darkness and/or fog alone do not create an extrahazardous crossing. However, those cases are inapposite, because, as we have seen, in this case there is more — much more, and, of course, each case rests upon its own facts. Here, the evidence fully supports the finding that the crossing was extrahazardous.

. See Restatement of Torts, 2d, Section 301(2), Comment (1965):
Duty to continue customary wamine. The actor may customarily adopt a method of giving warning which is in excess of that which a reasonable man would regard as necessary. By so doing, he may cause those likely to be affected by his act to rely upon the continuance of such warnings and to regard their absence as an assurance of safety. If the situation is such that the actor should realize that this is the case, he cannot discontinue this practice without exercising reasonable care to give warning thereof, although he thereafter does all that would otherwise be reasonably necessary. Thus a railway company may station a watchman or install safety gates or automatic signals at a crossing over which the traffic is not so heavy as to require such precautions. Having led the traveling public to regard the failure of the watchman to wave his flag as an assurance that the track is clear, the company cannot discontinue the watchman without reasonable notice. So too, it must keep safety gates or signals in working order until they are removed or reasonable notice of their abandonment is given.