Court Opinion

ID: 9587129
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 23:18:17.784531+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:33:02.956189
License: Public Domain

Stukes, Chief Justice
(concurring).
Upon application of the rule that the evidence must be considered in the light most favorable to respondent, I concur in the opinion of Mr. Justice Taylor.
'Appellant’s contention that it was error to charge the principle of last clear chance is not available on appeal for the reason that it was not timely objected to in the trial court. Sec. 10-1210, 1955 Cumulative Supplement to the Code of 1952, and cases cited in the footnotes thereto.
Reverting to the evidence, the testimony of the conductor, whom ■ plaintiff called as a witness, should be pursued further than it is quoted in the opinion of Mr. Justice Legge.
The conductor said that he first saw the object on the track, which turned out to be the decedent, when only two car lengths away, when he applied the brakes and he did not *587recognize it as the body of a man until later; he applied the brakes for his own protection. Quoting from his testimony, repeating some which is also quoted by Mr. Justice Legge, in order to show the connection:
“Q. * * * If you had a headlight back there, could you see any farther with it than you do with these electric lanterns ? A. I could have seen further, but I don’t know whether I could have seen further in the direction of the individual lying on the track.
“Q. You could have seen further than with an electric lantern? That makes sense, doesn’t it, Mr. Tedards? A. Yes.”
There was other evidence which, I think, tended to establish negligence with respect to the lack of adequate illumination of the track behind the backing train. “That proof of a plaintiff’s cause of action (where a nonsuit is not granted) can be supplied by a defendant, and conversely, proof of a defendant’s defense can be supplied by a plaintiff, is a postulate which cannot be denied.” Greenville County v. Stover, 198 S. C. 240, 17 S. E. (2d) 535, 537. Incidentally, while ordinarily a party may not impeach the credibility of, or contradict, his witness, he may prove his case by other evidence although it is in direct conflict with the testimony of a former witness called by him. See the cases collected in 19 S. C. Dig. 408, Witnesses, 400.
The flagman, who was a witness for defendant and who was standing on the rear end of the backing train, with an electric lantern in his hand, testified in part as follows :
“Just directly as we crossed Hdnce Street we noticed an object on the track. We couldn’t tell what it was right then at the moment we saw it. Conductor Tedards immediately applied the brakes and just as we almost directly got on top of the object we could tell it was a man. * * *
“Conductor Tedards immediately put the brakes in emergency position because he didn’t know whether it was a cross-tie, or log, or what it was laying on the track that *588might derail the train. We was almost upon it before we knowed it was a man and the brakes were already on at the time.”
From the foregoing, I think it reasonably inferable that defendant was negligent in backing its train without light sufficient for the members of the crew who were maintaining a lookout to determine that ah object on the track was the body of a man until the train was upon it.
In evidence as the defendant’s exhibit is blue print of a map of the railroad tracks and surroundings, which was made by its engineering department. The conductor testified, quoting from his testimony, “Shortly after crossing Hance Street I saw an object lying directly across the rails.” The map shows that the curve in the track from the end of a trestle, before Hance Street was reached, to the location of decedent on the track, is a curve of between five and six degrees, which may fairly be said is not a sharp curve, and the map shows no obstruction to the view after the trestle was crossed. From the map it appears that the distance between the end of the trestle and Hance Street is about one hundred and forty feet; and from Hance Street to the end of the curve, approximately where decedent lay, is about two hundred and ten feet. (These distances were testified to as aggregating 344 feet.) Thus there was a distance of about three hundred and fifty feet of unobstructed vision, with little or no interference because of the curve, from the end of the trestle to decedent. It is reasonably inferable that the lookout would have seen decedent if the track had been lighted ahead of the moving train and that due care required such, with ample distance in which to stop the slowly moving train and avoid taking the life of decedent. The testimony is that the train was actually stopped within that distance.
There was no objection on the part of the defendant to the following instructions to the jury:
“I charge you that independent of any statute — and so far as has been called to my attention no statute of this State *589applies to this case, but is based upon what we call the common law- — independent of any statute the law requires the railroad company to use due care, or ordinary care, for the safety of persons who may lawfully be or enter upon its tracks, under what we call the common law and which you gentlemen call common sense. The railroad company is required, acting through its agents and servants in charge of its trains, to operate them in a reasonable and prudent manner, to keep a reasonable lookout for persons who may be lawfully upon or about to enter upon a railroad track, and to equip that train with such devices as ordinary prudence and care would dictate should be used so as to keep a reasonable lookout, and generally to do what a person of ordinary reason and prudence would do in the same circumstances, and the failure so to do would be negligence.”
I conceive it to be the common law duty of a railroad company to have at the forward end of a train, which is moving at night, a light sufficient to illumine the track for a reasonable distance ahead, certainly where the movement is through a thickly populated town and over numerous street crossings, as here. The hand lanterns of the crewmen were as ineffective in result in this instance as if there had been no lights, and surely all would concede that no lights would be negligence. Here we have the equivalent. I think the jury were fully warranted, under the testimony of the train crew, to find that the company failed in its duty. I am impelled to this conclusion by the authority of Carter v. Seaboard Airline Ry. Co., 114 S. C. 517, 104 S. E. 186.
There are many similarities between the facts of the Carter case and of this. A large verdict for actual and punitive damages was affirmed in that case for the death of one who was struck by a backing train in the suburbs of the city of Charleston. It was said in the opinion that the theory of the plaintiff was that decedent was walking upon or near the railroad track, while the theory of the defendant was that he was, -quoting, “lying in a fit on the track;” and the train was backing, quoting, “with the caboose at the tail end and *590no headlight upon it.” It was further said in the course of the opinion that, independent of statute, quoting, “if a railroad train shall be operated backward along its track on a dark night, and at a place accustomed to be used by the people for a walkway, with the knowledge of the operators, then the operators must use due care to prevent injuries to the people.” Toward the end of the opinion it was repeated that the train was moving backward at night, without headlight, ten or fifteen miles án hour along or close by certain named streets.
Likewise there is little difference between the case at bar and Browder v. Southern Ry. Co., 226 S. C. 26, 83 S. E. (2d) 455. There two crewmen of the backing train stood with lanterns atop the lead car and saw nothing of the man upon the track. Here the crewmen with lanterns at the end of the lead car saw nothing until within two car lengths and were able to recognize the object to be a man only when upon him. In both cases the lanterns were insufficient to illumine the track ahead of the backing trains. The Carter case was cited with approval and relied upon to sustain the verdict in the Browder case.