Court Opinion

ID: 9812714
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 22:45:38.589806+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:25:56.811127
License: Public Domain

BunwEivL, J.,
concurring: I concur in the disposition made of this appeal because I see in the case no evidence whatever of negligence on the part of the defendant, and abundant evidence of negligence on the part of the plaintiff The rule of the defendant company, of which the plaintiff had full knowledge, and which, out of abundance of caution, he had been required specially to promise to obey, prohibited him from going between cars for the purpose of coupling or uncoupling them, “under any circumstances,”. when they wore attached to an engine. Having promulgated this general and imperative rule to all its couplers, the servants of the company who were charged with the duty of making up and inspecting trains were permitted to act upon the supposition that it would be obeyed. The engineer was permitted, in moving his engine, to act upon the same belief. The rule was notice to the plaintiff that he should expect no provision for his safety when the cars were pushed together by the movement of the engine, for he was expected not to go between them. Assuming that it was made in good faith (and there is no pretence or proof that it was not), I feel constrained to say that it seems to mo a beneficent, not an unreasonable regulation, and that while for some purposes a conductor in charge of a train is an alter ego of the corporation that *725principle should not, in my opinion, be construed to authorize the abrogation by him of rules made by the managing officers of the company to govern the conduct of its employees. The servants of a great transportation company constitute an army in which rigid discipline must be enforced, not less for the safety of the public than for the safety of its own members. There must be obedience or there will be disaster. I think the Courts should seek to encourage the strict enforcement of all reasonable regulations made in good faith.