Court Opinion

ID: 9811389
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 22:19:11.511909+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:13:18.753272
License: Public Domain

BeowN, J.,
concurring:. While I am of opinion that his Honor erred in sustaining the motion to nonsuit, the grounds upon which I base this conclusion are entirely different from those stated in the opinion of the Court.
The plaintiff claims damage of the defendant:
(1) For that the servants of the defendant, its engineers, willfully, wantonly and brutally mutilated the dead body of her husband.
(2) For the negligent failure to gather up his remains and prepare the same for burial.
A most careful examination of the record convinces me that there is no evidence to support the first allegation, either as against the engineers, the section master or any other employee of the defendant.
I should be loth to charge any man with the willful, wanton and brutal mutilation of the dead, much less those men who daily take their lives in their hands for our benefit and who belong to a profession whose unpretending, self-sacrificing heroism has been immortalized in song and story. Many of them, in endeavoring to save the lives of those committed to their care, have held an unfaltering hand upon the lever when they knew they were rushing onward to certain 'death. Many humble heroes of the throttle have, like Jim Bludsoe,
“Held lier nozzle ag’in’ the hank
’Til the last galoot’s ashore,”
and then died at the post of duty that others, whom they did not even know, might live.
The evidence, to sustain such an accusation and against such men, should be clear, not only as to fact of mutilation, but that the engineers of the defendant did it willfully, wantonly and therefore knowingly.
*404Tbe evidence taken on tbe trial was all introduced by tbe plaintiff, and, as I read it, there is nothing to show a willful and wanton mutilation upon tbe part of any engineer of the defendant or any other employee of tbe defendant. It is admitted that tbe deceased was not killed through any negligence of defendant’s servants, and no claim is made for such negligent killing.
Tbe evidence tends to prove that plaintiff’s husband, Robert Kyles, an employee of defendant, left Statesville on 19 January, 1905, on defendant’s train for Landis, Cabarrus County, and that be intended to stop off somewhere that night m route to visit his aunt. It seems to be conceded that the deceased never reached Salisbury, and it appears that he was killed somewhere near the four-mile post from Salisbury. At that point blood, brains and hair were first discovered on the rail. Farther down the trunk of the body was found, rolled over and lying in between the rails and almost unrecognizable as that of a human being. The watch of the deceased was found near the four-mile post, mashed in and the hands stopped at 7% minutes to 9. The engineer, Keever, of train No. 12, testifying for plaintiff, states that his train passed this spot at 8:53 P. HI.; that his electric headlight was shining, and that he neither saw nor struck anyone on the track, and if he had.struck a man with the pilot of his engine he would have known it. There is no evidence that the deceased was struck by any engine, and the condition of the body repels that theory. All the evidence tends to prove that the body was not thrown from the track by the pilot, but that the fragments of the body — limbs, blood, hair and clothing — were carried eastward for a mile or more from the point on the track where the evidence of his death was first seen. It was on an eastbound train that the deceased left Statesville on the evening of the 19th, and it is a most reasonable and in fact about the only legitimate inference to draw from the facts and circumstances in evidence that the deceased fell from the train upon which he was traveling, between the cars, and, becoming entangled *405in tbe machinery under the cars, was ground up .and his body crushed and dismembered in the running gear and rods under the cars, and his flesh and blood scattered for some distance along the track. It would require only a second or two to do this at the usual speed of a passenger train.
Assuming that during the night defendant’s engines passed over the remains as they lay scattered along the track between the rails, it was ignorantly done upon the part of the engineers. It cannot be said to have been wantonly and willfully done unless knowingly done. There is not a scintilla of evidence that any engineer of defendant knew that the scattered debris of a human body were anywhere on the track until next morning. The only part of the remains found between the rails (nothing was found on the rails except blood and hair) was the trunk of the body, with an arm doubled up under it, and a hand and a foot and legs. The body was rolled over, lying in between the rails, in an unrecognizable mass. The witnesses testified that “it was a mighty hard matter to tell what the body was by itself.” The legs were equally as difficult to recognize and were 100 yards west from the trunk. All the evidence shows that, if the engineers ran over these remains during the night, they not only did it ignorantly, but that no human eye could have discovered from the cab window of a rushing engine what they were.
As to the actual mutilation by passing engines during the day, after the remains were discovered to be those of a human being, there is hardly a scintilla of evidence, and absolutely nothing to indicate wanton and willful injury.
After the body was discovered next day the witnesses testify that the passing trains were stopped and passed slowly over the body without touching it, except in one instance. One witness states that in passing over the dead trunk between the rails an engine rod on one engine touched the shoulder, but did not cut or mutilate it. Why these remains were allowed to remain on the track all day is best explained by plaintiff’s witness, J. M. Nice, who says:
*406“Q. Why was it you did not take bis body off tbe track before that?
“A. We did not think we had any right to move it. People said not to move it until the coroner got there. Some said move it and others said don’t until the coroner comes.
“Q. And after the coroner came the remains that had been found up to that time were picked up' and taken to Salisbury?
“A. Yes, sir.”
The persons who insisted on not touching the remains until the coroner came were the citizens of the .neighborhood, and they were governed by what we all know to be a very prevalent error as to the requirements of the law. I fully agree with the learned counsel for plaintiff that the defendant owed the plaintiff the duty to gather the body of her husband and its fragments found on its track and to decently protect and prepare them for burial. A negligent failure to do so is an infringement of the plaintiff’s legal rights and therefore actionable. Therefore, if the section master negligently permitted the remains to be exposed on the track and failed to properly care for them, the defendant would be liable to plaintiff in damages for such actual physical, including mental, suffering as she sustained by reason of the knowledge thereof, notwithstanding the fact that the section master acted in good faith and under a mistaken sense of duty.
If there was any evidence that the section master refused to remove, the remains from a willful, wanton or malicious motive, I should say that, in addition to actual or compensatory damages, punitive damages would be allowable in the discretion of the jury. But there is no such evidence in the record. It is perfectly evident from the testimony of Rice and other witnesses that the section master failed to' remove the body out of deference to the prevalent opinion that the coroner .must first be sent for. Accordingly, as testified to by L. A. Rice, the section master left one of his men in charge of the body and went at once to Salisbury for the coroner and returned some time before the coroner arrived. The declara*407tions of tbe section master manifesting some impatience at tbe prospect of spending tbe nigbt guarding tbe remains while waiting for tbe coroner were properly excluded. After tbe coroner arrived tbe remains were gathered up, under bis direction, properly cared for and carried to Salisbury on tbe next train.
Tbe details of this dreadful occurrence are well calculated to shock anyone and to disturb that judicial serenity and impartiality with which all cases should be considered. But I am glad to say, for humanity’s sake, that a careful examination and mature consideration of tbe record convince me that, while tbe section master,erred in bis duty through an honest mistake, there is no evidence of willful, wanton, intentional or reckless brutality upon tbe part of anyone. *
I think the judgment of nonsuit should be set aside and a new trial ordered along the lines laid down in this opinion, and it is so ordered.
Walker and OoNNOR, JJ., concur in the opinion of BrowN, J.