Court Opinion

ID: 9807834
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 20:17:18.130362+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:03:26.350638
License: Public Domain

Clark, J.
(dissenting): In this case it is not denied that the plaintiff’s intestate was guilty of negligence. The exception taken by the defendant below is, in purport and effect, that there was no evidence sufficient to go to the jury tending to show that, notwithstanding the negligence of the deceased, the injury “might have been avoided by the exercise of reasonable care and prudence on the part of the defendant.”
Taking the plaintiff’s evidence in every respect to be true, this, exception of defendant should be sustained. By that evidence, the plaintiff’s intestate was walking on a trestle a little after the regular schedule time of the passenger train, .and at a point where he could see the train for a mile. The trestle was 125 feet long, the engineer sounded the whistle 450 or 500 yards from the north end of the trestle going south and about two p. m. in the day-time, the train moving at the rate of thirty to thirty-five miles an hour.
*451When the engineer sees a man, not known by him to be deaf, drank or insane, walking on the track, he has ground to believe that on sounding the whistle the man will get off the track in time. He is not compelled to slacken the speed of the train on that account. This has been often decided, and lately in McAdoo v. Railroad, 105 N. C., 140, and Meredith v. Railroad, 108 N. C., 616.
It cannot, with reason be contended that in this case this short trestle should have caused the engineer to slacken his speed; for aside from the difficulty of an engineer moving at that speed being able to locate a man on any specified 125 feet of track, there was but 125 feet, i. e., 41|- yards of the trestle, and, by plaintiff’s evidence, the deceased was five or six yards on the trestle when the whistle blew. If the engineer did not know the man was on the trestle, he had reasonable ground to believe he would not go on it after the signal. If he is held responsible for the knowledge that the man was on the trestle, he had reasonable ground to believe that the man would turn back the six yards he had traversed, and he must also be credited with the knowledge that if the man persisted in attempting to cross that while the engine, moving thirty or thirty-five miles an hour, was running more than a quarter of a mile (456 yards), a man could traverse the remaining thirty-six yards of the trestle, who was walking at one-thirteenth of that speed, or under three miles an hour. It was not unreasonable in the engineer to-suppose that a man who would attempt to cross a trestle in front of a passenger train would at least move as rapidly as three miles an hour, when an ordinary walk is more rapid. This is not like Conigland’s case, where the deceased was a deaf man and the engineer knew him; nor like Deans’ case, 107 N. C., 686, where the man was drunk and helpless on the track; nor like Manly’s case 74 N. C., 655, where the injured parties were children; nor like Troy’s case, 99 N. C., 298, where the accident was in the night-time in a populous town and *452the train moving at an unusual hour, no headlight used and no signal being given; nor like those cases where the trains were passing out of the regular time and no signal was sounded; nor like live-stock cases, Carlton v. Railroad, 104 N. C., 365, and the like; nor those in which stress is laid on the fact that stock, unlike human beings, have not intelligence enough to get off the track. Here the train was on nearly regular schedule time, there was no evidence that the man was drunk or that the engineer had reason to think he was; it was in broad daylight (2 p. m.) ; the signal was sounded in ample time, and the engineer was not wanting in due care in supposing that after the signal the man would not go on the trestle, or if there, he would get off as he had time to do. We do not advert to plaintiff’s evidence that the deceased might have escaped by getting on the end of one of the several large sills in the trestle, nor that he could have let himself down to the ground, only some eight feet below. Still less do we advert to the evidence offered for the defendant. But taking the plaintiff’s evidence alone, the shortness of the trestle and the signal given in such ample time, it is clear there was no evidence to go to the jury that there was negligence in not stopping or slackening up a train under these circumstances. If the trestle had been a long one, or very high, a different case entirely would be presented. But here it was only a little over forty yards long and eight feet high. With the slightest regard to prudence, the man might and should have gotton off in ample time. If, as is probable from plaintiff’s evidence, the plaintiff deliberately walked or recklessly rushed on the trestle after the signal sounded, or walked slower than a man ordinarily does, that was a piece of folly or fool-hardiness that the engineer might well be excused for not anticipating.
Railroads are expected to guard against every avoidable injury, and even to prevent injury to a plaintiff from the consequences of his own negligence, if, by reasonable care *453they can avoid it, but the traveling public and the railroads have rights also, and the latter should not be held liable for damages in presuming, under the circumstances of this case,' that the plaintiff, after the signal given, either would not go on the trestle or, if there, would get off, as he had full time to do.
It is almost certain that the deceased ran upon the trestle after the whistle sounded (for if on it at that time he would have cleared it at an ordinary walk before the engine could have reached it at the speed stated by plaintiff’s witness, of thirty or thirty-five miles an hour), and if this is so, it is not shown how close the engine then was to him, and that the engineer could then have stopped his train in time to avoid striking him. Yet, the burden of showing this was on the plaintiff. If deceased was on the trestle when the whistle blew, the engineer knew he had ample time to cross so short a trestle before the engine could reach it. If he went on it after the whistle blew, it is not shown when, nor that the engineer could then have stopped the train in time.
In Deans v. Railroad, supra, it is said: “We have reiterated the principle that where an engineer sees a human being walking along or across the track in front of his engine, he has a right to assume, without further information, that he is a reasonable person, and will step out of the way of harm before the engine reaches him. McAdoo v. Railroad, 105 N. C., 153; Daily v. Railroad, 106 N. C., 301; Parker v. Railroad, 86 N. C., 221.” The same rule is again laid down in Meredith v. Railroad, 108 N. C., 616. These cases should be decisive of the one before us. Here, from the shortness of the trestle, the distance at which the train could be seen, and the length of time the signal was given, “the engineer had the right to assume that the person would step out of harm’s way before the engineer reached him.” To lay down the principle that where an engineer sees a man apparently sober on a short and low trestle, the full length of which he *454knows the man, at an ordinary gait, can cross after the signal is sounded, he must, nevertheless, stop or slacken speed; or that if he sees a man walking near such trestle he must do likewise for fear that he may rush upon the trestle and try to beat the train across, is a rule that is hardly consistent with the decisions above cited, nor consonant with the right-of-way of the railroad to the use of its own track. Should the man, nevertheless, be so fool-hardy, as was probably the case here, as to run upon the trestle after the ■ signal was given, the engineer, in the interest of human life, should stop the train if time is given him to do so, but the burden of showing that he could do so is on the plaintiff. Upon the plaintiff’s evidence in this case, his intestate was guilty of gross negligence, and there was no evidence sufficient to go to the jury that the defendant, by the exercise of reasonable care and prudence, could have avoided the unfortunate, consequences of the intestate’s recklessness. The engineer knew, that the intestate, if on the trestle, had. ample time to get off after the whistle [sounded, and reason to suppose that he-would do so, and he was not called on to anticipate that the intéstate would rush upon the trestle when the engine was so. close at hand that it does not appear it could have been stopped in time to avoid the accident.
Davis, J., concurred in the dissenting opinion.
Per curiam. Affirmed.