Court Opinion

ID: 9625989
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 07:57:45.472255+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:59:33.238591
License: Public Domain

Ott, C. J.
(dissenting)—The trial judge granted a new trial for the reason that he had erroneously instructed the jury that the respondent company had a statutory duty “to ring the bell or sound the whistle” at a railroad crossing used exclusively as a private easement for the convenience of the adjacent farm operation. The majority hold that such a statutory duty exists. I do not agree.
RCW 81.48.010 provides:
“Every engineer driving a locomotive on any railway who shall fail to ring the bell or sound the whistle upon such locomotive, or cause the same to be rung or sounded at least eighty rods from any place where such railway crosses a traveled road or street on the same level (except in cities), or to continue the ringing of such bell or sounding of such whistle until such locomotive shall have crossed such road or street, shall be guilty of a misdemeanor.” (Italics mine.)
This court has never defined the meaning or scope of the words “traveled road” or had occasion to interpret the intent of the legislature in this regard. The cited statute was enacted by the legislature in 1909, and re-enacted in 1961. It was taken nearly verbatim from a Minnesota law. In Czech v. Great Northern Ry. Co., 68 Minn. 38, 41, 70 N. W. 791 (1897), the Supreme Court of Minnesota, in *125holding that the words “traveled road” did not include a private roadway, said:
“. . . We agree with counsel for the defendant that the statute requiring a bell to be rung or a whistle to be sounded at least 80 rods from the place where a railway crosses a ‘traveled road or street’ on the same level does not apply to private farm crossings. It only applies to public roads; that is, roads traveled by the public. A mere farm crossing, designed exclusively for the convenience of the adjacent landowner, is never spoken of, either in the statutes or in common speech, as a ‘road.’ Probably the object in using the term ‘traveled road,’ instead of ‘highway’ or ^public highway,’ was to include roads actually used and traveled as public highways, without regard to whether they have been legally laid out or dedicated as such.”
This interpretation of the Minnesota statute by the Supreme Court of Minnesota was announced prior to our 1909 legislative session. In Jackson v. Colagrossi, 50 Wn. (2d) 572, 575, 313 P. (2d) 697 (1957), the late Judge Foster, speaking for the court, said:
“ . . . By an unbroken line of decisions only recently reaffirmed, this court is committed to the prevailing rule of construction that the adoption of a statute of another state likewise carries with it the construction placed upon such statute by the courts of that state. ...”
It seems evident to me that the legislature of this state intended “a traveled road” to mean one over which the public has a right to travel, whether such right was acquired by prescription or otherwise. I do not believe that, by the enactment of RCW 81.48.010, supra, the legislature intended that an engineer should be required to ring a bell or sound a whistle “at least eighty rods” from where the railway crosses each one of the thousands of private roadway easements across railroad rights of way in this state. Had the legislature intended the words “traveled road” to encompass private easements, it would have included those descriptive words in the statute.
The jury, upon retrial, might find that the railway company, in the proper exercise of due care, had a duty to *126“ring the bell or sound the whistle.” However, in my opinion, there is no statutory duty to do so.
For the reasons stated, the order granting a new trial should be affirmed.
Donworth and Weaver, JJ., concur with Ott, C. J.