Court Opinion

ID: 9448091
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 23:23:10.843979+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:31:17.457777
License: Public Domain

CECIL, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
I would affirm the judgment of the District Court.
The trial judge did review the evidence for the benefit of the jury and explained why he was directing a verdict. This is commendable. His conclusion is unequivocal as to a total lack of evidence to support the plaintiff’s case. He said: “So the Court concludes here, in accordance with the decisions, that in the first instance there is no direct evidence, no convincing proof, certainly no substantial proof, that Section 51 was violated by the railroad in the operation of its train in that it maintained a frog in an unsafe condition. There is absolutely no proof of that upon the part of the plaintiff that could be relied upon but, on the contrary, there is the proof of the yard maintenance man, yard foreman, that it was in good condition. (Emphasis added.)
“The Court is also of the opinion that, so far as the violation of Section 23 is concerned, the plaintiff has not supported the contentions alleged in his Complaint, to-wit, that the cushion was movable, and did move, and therefore caused him to be thrown about and out of the engine cab window.”
I too am of the opinion that there is no evidence, upon which reasonable minds might differ, that there was any negligence on the part of the defendant, in the slightest degree, causing the injuries of the plaintiff.
The attempt to prove that the frog was defective completely failed. The only evidence on that subject is undisputed. It is that about six months after the accident it was taken up for the reason that the tracks and switch had to be moved because of the construction of an expressway. It was in good operating condition when taken up and was placed on a stock pile of partially worn frogs. It was subsequently used at another place. It had been in use at least five years. The plaintiff did not examine it, although there was ample opportunity for him to have done so before it was removed.
Mr. Louis J. Mang, a railroader for over forty years, could qualify as an expert and under certain conditions could give opinion evidence. However, in my judgment, the trial judge was right in rejecting his testimony under the circumstances of this ease. In the hypothetical question, the “sudden jerk” of the engine was described as “violent.” There is no evidence that it was violent. The plaintiff said: “It took a sudden lurch to the side.” The engineer said that he did not feel any unusual movement or lurching of the locomotive. Raymond Pffaf, the only other person on the locomotive at the time of the accident, said there was *365a lurch or jerk of the locomotive but that the motion of the locomotive was not unusual.
The question also included a statement “that the plaintiff’s position was with his head and shoulders out of the window of the cab looking down the track with his arm on an arm rest on the side of the window of that engine cab.” There is no evidence that his head and shoulders were out of the window. The plaintiff said: “I was sitting in the seat facing south, towards the rear of the train.” * * * “I was leaning out of the window.”
An examination of the questions asked disclose clearly that the assumed facts were insufficient to warrant the expression of an opinion by the witness. Any answer would have been pure speculation. There was no statement about a worn frog or to what extent it was worn.
Furthermore, there was no proffer as to what the witness would say in answer to the questions until after the trial judge had indicated he would direct a verdict. At this time counsel for the plaintiff made a proffer after the witness was long gone from the court room. Counsel for the defendant objected to this proffer in the absence of the witness. In a matter so highly controversial as this, it would have been proper to have the witness give his answer in the record, out of the hearing of the jury. No one knows what the answer of the witness would have been. In my opinion, the record is not in shape to raise this question on appeal.
The plaintiff stated his opinion as to the cause of the accident, as follows: “Well, from my previous experience, the frog in my opinion was the object of the accident. The frog was worn, causing the engine to take this lurching.” There is no testimony that he had previous experience with worn frogs, that he had any basis of comparison as to the lurch of a locomotive crossing over a good frog or a partially worn one. His statement is a pure conclusion based on an unwarranted inference. The trial judge was right in striking this- answer' from the record.
I do not take the position that a plaintiff cannot give his opinion in testimony. Such an opinion must be a reasonable inference or opinion based on some competent evidence in the record.
The facts of this case do not fall within the ambit of Lavender v. Kurn, 327 U.S. 645, 66 S.Ct. 740, 90 L.Ed. 916.