Court Opinion

ID: 9825298
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 12:31:40.536708+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:40:40.200561
License: Public Domain

On Application for Rehearing.
[10] The appellant urgently insists that the complaint in this case does not allege facts showing a duty owing by the defendant to plaintiff. The count upon which the case was tried is in the following language:
“8. Plaintiff claims of the defendant' $2,999 as damages for that heretofore, on, to wit, the 24th day of July, 1914, the defendant was engaged in the business of operating in the county of Montgomery, state of Alabama, a railroad, and then and there one of the railroad tracks operated or used by the defendant in connection with said business ran across a public highway in the county of Montgomery, state of Alabama, and plaintiff was at said time and near said place upon the said public highway, and then and there the defendant so negligently conducted its said business that by reason thereof and as a proximate result and consequence thereof, a team attached to a vehicle in said public highway from which plaintiff had alighted became frightened or unmanageable and ran upon' or collided with plaintiff, and plaintiff was thereby injured in this, to wit: His hip bone was broken ; he was internally injured; he was permanently injured; he was cut, bruised, and lacerated ; he -was caused to suffer great mental anguish and physical pain; he lost much time from his work; he expended large sums of money for medical services and hospital fees in the treatment of his said injuries, for all of which he claims damages as aforesaid.”
The statute (Code 1907, § 5476) makes railroad'companies liable to all persons for injuries resulting from a failure to comply with the requirements of the three preceding sections, or any negligence on the part of the company or its agents. As was said in Southern Railway Co. v. Crawford, 164 Ala. 183, 51 South. 341:
“There can be no doubt that the object in requiring the engineer to blow the whistle or ring the bell is to put the traveler on his guard.”
*268In tlie same case, it was said:
“It has been held by other courts having occasion to consider cases of the sort that statutes similar to ours are intended, among other things, to provide against the hazard .of damage by frightening teams traveling along (italics ours) the highway towards a crossing by enabling their drivers to place them in such positions as will best guard against such injuries.” Southern Railway Co. v. Crawford, supra, and authorities there cited.
The complaint alleges that the plaintiff: was on a highway where he had a right to be, and, such being the ease, the defendant owed him the duty to operate its locomotives and-trains as required by law, and if these trains were so negligently operated as to proximately x’esult in injury to plaintiff, defendant would be liable. Southern Railway Co. v. Williams, 143 Ala. 217, 38 South. 1013.
The allegation that plaintiff was “near” said place and upon the highway differentiates this case from the case of Birmingham Ry. Lt. & Power Co. v. Nicholas, 181 Ala. 478, 61 South. 890, and necessarily places plaintiff in a place where he had a right to be and in a place not necessarily dangerous (nor was he negligently there). Indeed, the place would not have become dangerous, nor would injury have resulted but for the wrong of defendant in negligently operating its locomotive.
As to the other assignments urged on rehearing, we see no necessity of extending the original opinion in this case.
Application overruled.