Court Opinion

ID: 9444525
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 21:03:50.154475+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:29:54.361641
License: Public Domain

MILLER, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
I concur in the view of the majority of the Court that the District Judge properly ruled that the evidence was sufficient to take the case to the jury on the question of appellant’s failure to furnish the decedent a reasonably safe place in which to work. I am of the opinion, however, that the District Judge was in error in also submitting to the jury the question of appellant’s negligence by reason of Engineer Carroll’s failure to stop the train if the lantern signal disappeared.
The engineer testified that he did not see the lantern hit the ground and that it did not go out of his sight. Liability would accordingly have to be based upon his failure to see it disappear when he should have been watching it and wasn’t. But, assuming there was a failure to see it disappear because he wasn’t looking, such failure was not negligence in the present case. It was not his duty to watch the lantern after the decedent completed the coupling operation and had started the train on its backward trip. The train was moving away from the lantern which was no longer being used as a signal, not towards it. Paragraph 41 of the Rules and Regulations of Operating Department of the Railroad Company was not applicable to the movement of the train at the time it is claimed the lantern disappeared from sight in that it was not then “moving under the direction of hand or lamp signals.” It was the duty of the engineer to watch the track ahead of him, not the lantern behind him.
Since a finding of liability by the jury was authorized under either theory of negligence, and the verdict was a general one, I am of the opinion that the judgment should be reversed.