Court Opinion

ID: 9808945
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 20:55:49.430574+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:21:56.541875
License: Public Domain

*399OlaeK, C. J.,
concurs in the conclusion reached, and that if the insertion of the word “wanton” in the issue was error, it was error against the plaintiff, as it threw upon him the burden of proving that the defendant acted recklessly and without regard for the rights of the plaintiff, since the court charged the jury to allow only compensatory damages; but does not concur that there was “no evidence of wanton negligence.”
"Wantonness has been defined as “acting recklessly and without due regard to the rights of others.” The plaintiff was where he had a right to be. He was on his return home, near the crossing of one railroad track by the other, and in the angle made thereby, waiting for the freight train to pass, when the “midnight flyer” mail train on the other track dashed into it and hurled a small stick of timber some 35 feet, which struck and seriously injured the plaintiff. These facts were not in dispute, and the defendant put on no evidence. The evidence was:
1. That the fast mail train was running 29 to 35 miles an hour, in violation of the ordinance of the town (in whose limits this injury occurred), which limited the speed to 10 miles an hour.
2. This train was running also in violation of defendant’s own rule No. 98, which required trains approaching such points to be prepared to stop. Both the above ordinance and rule are alleged in the complaint and admitted in the answer.
3. The train was running in violation of the statute which required an electric headlight of at least 1,500 candle power on the main line. The absence of a sufficient headlight is alleged in the complaint) and it was in testimony that there was no electric headlight. This was not contradicted by any evidence.
If this last is true, the defendant company was guilty of an indictable offense, as is provided by chapter 446, Laws 1909. The collision was itself evidence of negligence. Wright v. R. R., 127 N. C., 229, and many other cases. That it occurred while the defendant was in the commission of an indictable offense and running at a high rate of speed, in violation of the town ordinance, of its own rules, and of the statute of this State, was evidence of wanton negligence, that is, of “acting with reckless indifference to the rights of others.” Everett v. Receivers, 121 N. C., 521. There is no ground upon which the defendant can complain of the conduct of the trial.