Court Opinion

ID: 9794508
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 03:07:08.78221+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:16:56.184206
License: Public Domain

Hill, J.
(dissenting) — The majority opinion is so well written that I hesitate to voice a dissent, but the deftly woven phrases do not conceal the plain hard fact that the plaintiff was injured when the car in which he was riding hit the ninth and tenth cars of a 16-car freight train, then crossing the highway.
The train was not running amok; it was traveling on its own tracks, where it indubitably had a right to be. It also had an unequivocal right of way in crossing the highway; RCW 46.60.320; Morris v. Chicago, Milwaukee St. Paul & Pac. R. Co., 1 Wn.2d 587, 595, 97 P.2d 119 (1939); Haaga v. Saginaw Logging Co., 169 Wash. 547, 554, 14 P.2d 55 (1932).
*293The cited statute says that:
Any person operating a vehicle . . . shall, upon approaching the intersection of any public highway with a railroad or interurban grade crossing, reduce the speed of his vehicle to a rate of speed not to exceed that at which, considering the view along the track in both directions, the vehicle can be brought to a complete stop not less than ten feet from the nearest track in the event of an approaching train. RCW 46.60.320.
The plaintiff was a passenger in the car which hit the freight train, so we are not concerned here with any issue of the contributory negligence of the driver barring recovery by the plaintiff. I merely quote the statute to make it clear that, despite the dark, the wind and the rain, the train was where it had a right to be and where it had the right of way. Mention is made that it was Halloween, but there is no statute nor I.C.C. regulation requiring railroads to keep their trains in on Halloween lest they interfere with the peregrinations of adult pranksters.
There was no negligence in the operation of the train. We have frequently indicated that when a railroad train actually occupies a crossing that, in itself, generally supersedes all other warnings and gives notice by its own presence. Hendrickson v. Union Pac. R. Co., 17 Wn.2d 548, 136 P.2d 438, 161 A.L.R. 96 (1943); Schofield v. Northern Pac. R. Co., 4 Wn.2d 512, 104 P.2d 324 (1940); Reines v. Chicago, Milwaukee St. Paul & Pac. R. Co., 195 Wash. 146, 80 P.2d 406 (1938); Webb v. Oregon-Washington R. & Nav. Co., 195 Wash. 155, 80 P.2d 409 (1938); Ullrich v. Columbia & Cowlitz R. Co., 189 Wash. 668, 66 P.2d 853 (1937).
As the majority points out, there is an exception to this rule where the situation is unusual or extrahazardous or constitutes a situation in the nature of a trap to persons traveling upon the highway. Hendrickson v. Union Pac. R. Co., supra, and Schofield v. Northern Pac. R. Co., supra.
The judgment against the railroad can be affirmed only on the basis of the court’s finding that the railroad was maintaining, under the conditions then existing, a trap.
*294The only evidence concerning a trap was the testimony that a street light 80 feet from the crossing obscured rather than illuminated it because the reflected light on the raindrops, interacting with the beam from the headlights of the car in which the plaintiff was riding, so diffused the light that one could not see the crossing until beyond the street light. The trial court found that this constituted a trap for persons in the position of the plaintiff.
Assuming this to be a trap for the reason indicated, the railroad did not create it; there was no evidence that it knew that the town of Lyle, through its well intended placing of an overhead light, had created a trap for the unwary on dark and rainy nights. The railroad was there before the overhead street light in question was put in position and maintained by the town of Lyle. If this was a trap on a rainy night, the town and not the railroad was responsible for it.
If we assume that there was a trap at the locus in quo on rainy nights, the situation is so unusual that the railroad must have some notice that it exists before there can be a responsibility on its part to install adequate safeguards to prevent such entrapment. Hendrickson v. Union Pac. R. Co., supra. See 84 A.L.R.2d 830-32.
In Gilman v. Central Vermont R. Co., 93 Vt. 340, 348, 107 Atl. 122, 16 A.L.R. 1102 (1919), we have the situation of an automobile hitting a moving train because of a condition in the highway of which the railroad had no notice. In dismissing the action, the court said:
If the circumstances attending the accident were as plaintiff claimed, it is apparent that the automobile was not stopped before it struck the train because of the greasy condition of the road. But the defendant was not responsible for this condition, and there was no evidence that the trainmen knew or ought to have known of its existence. Thus, an unusual condition, unknown to the defendant’s servants, intervened that changed the plaintiff’s situation from one of safety to that of danger. There was nothing in the evidence to show that the trainmen did not manage the train with reasonable care and prudence in view of all the circumstances they knew or ought *295to have known. The accident happened through no fault of the defendant, and the court should have sustained its motion on the ground that there was no evidence for the jury tending to show actionable negligence.
. For a considerable distance east of the railroad crossing, the highway is straight and level. This is not a trap. We have an overhead light installed and maintained by the town 80 feet east of the crossing. This is not per se a trap. The trap exists only on dark and rainy nights when, as the majority states, Hewitt testified that,
the blackness of the night combined with the reflected light on the raindrops, interacting with the pickup’s headlights, obscured rather than illumined the crossing; and that, because of this diffused glow of light, one could not see the crossing until completely beyond the street light.
We have here a phenomenon, on this dark and rainy Halloween evening, of which the railroad had no notice and which, I submit, was not foreseeable. Judge Murrah puts it much better than I, in his opinion in a very similar case (Holt v. Thompson4, 115 F.2d 1013, 1016 (10th Cir. 1940)). There, the plaintiff was a passenger in a Ford truck which crashed into a train of cars. There was a, street light some 12 to 15 feet above the ground about 100 feet from the railroad track. It was the contention of the plaintiff-appellant,
that the presence of the street light . . . tended to obscure the vision of the driver of an automobile approaching the railroad crossing . . . because the street light decreased the visibility of one approaching it, especially if the objects on the railroad track are dark so as to prevent or decrease reflection, (p. 1014)
Discussing foreseeability, Judge Murrah said:
Reduced to its last analysis, the question is: should appellee or its employees have foreseen, with the exercise of ordinary and reasonable care, that a street light, the permanent improvement of a municipality, located a distance of 100 feet from a railroad crossing, was so situated *296that it cast its rays of light downward and across the highway at this point so that one driving an automobile through the city at a reasonable rate of speed could not see or detect the presence of a railroad train obstructing the highway at this point.
It is unusual that light under these circumstances would be urged as a deceptive agency in the consideration of the question of negligence. Indeed, it is unusual to allege that the presence of street lights at a railroad crossing would constitute a deceptive condition which, considered in the light of the rule of negligence, would cast upon appellee the duty to foresee and anticipate a hazardous condition. We do not say that such a condition could not exist but we do not think that the presence of this street light, at the point described, created such an unusual, peculiar and deceptive condition that it should have been anticipated by reasonable men in the exercise of ordinary care, so as to impose upon them the duty to warn one driving an automobile, at a reasonable rate of speed in compliance with a law of the state of Oklahoma, of the presence of railroad cars across the intersection.
In Atchison, T. & S. F. Ry. Co. v. Templar, 204 Okla. 460, 230 P.2d 907 (1951), it was the glare of light from a floodlight and a sign maintained by a filling station some 200 feet from the railroad crossing which constituted the trap. A verdict and judgment for the plaintiff-driver were set aside with directions to render judgment for the defendant. The court said:
If, as contended by plaintiff, the glare of the lights of the filling station rendered a driver temporarily unable to see after he passed the station, we think it was the duty of such driver to proceed with unusual caution until the highway before him was plainly visible, and that the railway company was not required to anticipate that the driver of such vehicle might blindly pursue his way so as to crash into an obstruction which should be visible to one in full possession of his faculties, (p. 463)
The presence of lights maintained by municipalities, service stations, or any third parties which obscure the vision of drivers approaching railroad crossings, rather than being considered as traps by the courts seem to be considered as conditions which require those using the highways to exer*297cise a vigilance proportionate to the danger. Vassey v. Standard Oil Co. of Kentucky, 119 F.2d 589 (5th Cir. 1941); Pollard v. Clifton, 62 Ga. App. 573, 9 S. E.2d 782 (1940); Norfolk & Western Ry. Co. v. Barney, 262 Ky. 228, 90 S. W.2d 14 (1936); Orange & Northwest R. Co. v. Harris, 127 Tex. 13, 89 S. W.2d 973 (1936). And this was true even where the railroad’s own light was involved, when it had no notice of factors that made an amber light blinding in a fog. Reid v. Texas & New Orleans R. Co., 254 S. W.2d 164 (Tex. Civ. App. 1952).
The Vassey case, supra, was an action for the wrongful death of a 17-year-old passenger in a truck which had run into the side of a freight train. It was foggy and drizzly, and the testimony was that the occupants of the truck could not see the railroad train because of the floodlights at the Standard Oil Service Station, but that they knew of the existence of the railroad crossing. Both the Standard Oil Company and the receiver for the railroad company were joined as defendants. The district court dismissed, and the circuit court affirmed, holding that neither the Standard Oil Company nor the railroad company was negligent. The court said:
Although in Georgia the negligence of the driver of an automobile may not be imputed to the guest, it is settled that if the negligence of the driver is the sole proximate cause of the accident the guest may not recover against a third person. Taking as true the facts alleged in the petition it is clear that the driver of the truck was solely at fault, (p. 591)
The respondent here argues that since the trial court found that both the driver and the plaintiff used due care and as no error was assigned to these findings, they must be accepted as verities; and if they exercise due care, the railroad must be negligent. The law recognizes that there is such a thing as an injury for which no one is liable; and, certainly, negligence of the railroad is not established by a trial court’s finding that someone else used due care.
There is no showing that the railroad had notice of the phenomenon occurring at this particular railroad crossing *298on dark, rainy nights when the glow from a municipal street light and automobile headlights intermingled with raindrops results in a diffusion of light that constitutes a trap to travelers on the highway. I would hold, therefore, that the negligence of the railroad had not been established and dismiss the case.
Donworth, Weaver, and Ott, JJ., concur with Hill, J.

Thompson was the trustee in bankruptcy for the Missouri Pacific Railroad Company.