Court Opinion

ID: 9469203
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 02:35:06.460602+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:41:17.009974
License: Public Domain

TATE, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent insofar as the majority holds that the plaintiff Kinchen was contributorily negligent as a matter of law. With great respect for the able trial judge and for my esteemed colleagues of the majority, the upholding of the directed verdict and the depriving of the jury of its function to determine this factual question are in contravention of the principles of Boeing v. Shipman, 411 F.2d 365 (5th Cir. 1969), quoted but ignored by the majority.
In substance, the majority accepts the facts relied upon by Kinchen: The train (a locomotive and four carbon-black cars) backed toward the spur-track crossing of the roadway without audible warning. In these very dark early-morning hours, there were no lights to indicate the approach of the train or the location of the tracks at the crossing. In contravention of law and contract, there was no railroad cross-buck sign to alert the oncoming motorist of the location of the railroad track across the crossing. The railroad did not signal its approach with bells or whistles, nor did any headlight illuminate its path as it backed toward the crossing.
The majority holds that Kinchen was con-tributorily negligent as a matter of law because (1) he did not stop before entering the railroad crossing and (2) he did not look or listen for the invisible and inaudible train. Kinchen (a temporary construction worker at the site) was serving for the first time as night watchman on this brief tour of duty at the site. He indeed knew that somewhere in the three hundred feet of roadway ahead of him there was a railroad track crossing (because he had passed it two or three times during the daytime). However, in the absence of the cross-buck sign (required both by law, La.R.S. 45:562, and by a particular contract between the landowner and the railroad company, see Exhib*628it P-8), he was not alerted to just where ahead on the dark roadway was the railroad crossing. Further, the record is devoid of evidence as to how often a train used this spur-track in the nighttime, and so far as the record shows Kinchen had never seen a railroad on that unfenced spur-track.
As will be shown more fully below, under Louisiana authority, Kinchen’s conduct did not constitute contributory negligence as a matter of law.
The majority in effect holds that any time a motorist approaches an unmarked railroad crossing (unmarked in violation of law) and fails to look and listen for an unlighted and inaudible train, the motorist is contributorily negligent, if sometime during his brief prior acquaintance with the area he had become aware that a railroad track crossed the roadway somewhere in front of him, but nevertheless does not constantly look for the (unmarked) crossing and look and listen for the silent and darkened train. The rule evoked by the majority apparently applies no matter how dark the night, how unexpected or occasional a train might be at the time and place of the accident, how grossly negligent and unforeseeable the conduct of the railroad. This is simply not the current law of Louisiana; I doubt that it is the modern law of any other American jurisdiction.
In the first place, the more recent Louisiana decisions emphasize that whether the failure of an oncoming motorist to observe a railroad approaching to or in a crossing constitutes contributory negligence is an issue of fact that should be judged upon all the facts and circumstances surrounding the collision, not subject to hard and fast (e.g., “stop, look, and listen”) rules that may be obsolete in the light of modern train crossing conditions. Odom v. Hooper, 273 So.2d 510, 514-15 (La.1973); Troxlair v. Illinois Central Railroad Co., 291 So.2d 797 (La.App. 4th Cir. 1974), cert, denied, 294 So.2d 834 (La.1974); Beal v. Kansas City Southern Railway Co., 291 So.2d 510 (La. App. 2d Cir. 1974). Further, in determining whether the motorist is contributorily negligent, the finder of fact may take into consideration that the railroad’s grossly negligent conduct in utter disregard of crossing traffic may not be foreseeable by the motorist. Reeves v. Louisiana and Arkansas Railway Co., 282 So.2d 503, 509-510 (La. 1973).
The utter-disregard negligence of the railroad defendant is clear. It has long been recognized in Louisiana that a train backing at night is grossly negligent with regard to a person injured in a crossing accident if the train does not have adequate rear lighting or flagman or lookout to alert crossing traffic of the unusual hazard presented. Maher v. Louisiana Ry. & Nav. Co., 145 La. 733, 82 So. 872 (1919). (In holding the plaintiff free of contributory negligence, the court commented: “He had a right to believe, and to act upon the belief, that the railroad company would have some regard for the safety of the public.” 145 La. at 738, 82 So. at 874.) See also Dobrowski v. Holloway Gravel Co., 173 So. 474 (La.App. 1st Cir. 1937) (“[I]t is recognized as much more dangerous to back a string of cars from out the darkness onto the highway without lights on the lead ear, or a flagman stationed at the crossing to warn motorists. It is gross negligence to back a string of cars at night over a public crossing without lights or proper warning signals.” 173 So. at 276.); Robertson v. Missouri Pac. R.R. Co., 165 So. 527, reh. den., 167 So. 165 (La.App. 1st Cir. 1936).
As to the present motorist’s alleged contributory negligence in failing to stop, look, and listen as in the pitch-dark night he approached the crossing: In a decision of this circuit authored by the late Judge Ainsworth, we summarized the obligations of the railroad company at a crossing of a road open to public use. Burdis v. Texas & Pacific Ry. Co., 569 F.2d 320, 322 (5th Cir. 1978), citing Louisiana jurisprudence as well as La.R.S. 45:562 (duty to maintain a cross-buck sign to alert motorists of railroad crossing). The duty of a motorist to stop not less than ten feet or more than fifty feet before a railroad crossing and to look for approaching trains, La.R.S. 45:563, must be read in conjunction with this preceding *629statutory section. I am unable to see how Kinchen was under a duty to stop and look (for a nigh-invisible train), when in violation of law and contract the crossing was not marked by a cross-buck sign (that, if properly placed, would have been observable to him by the headlights of the opposite-bound vehicle if not by the reflection of his own parking lights), simply because from his prior casual observation during his brief stay at the worksite he knew that somewhere in the three hundred feet of roadway ahead of him there was a railroad crossing.
Under the law of Louisiana (and elsewhere), contributory negligence is conduct on the part of a plaintiff that falls below the standard to which he should conform for his own protection as “a reasonable man under like circumstances,” and “[f]ailure to take every precaution against every foreseeable risk” does not constitute contributory negligence. Smolinski v. Taulli, 276 So.2d 286 (La.1973) (emphasis in original).
It is difficult for me to believe that any court sitting in 1982 America could hold that Kinchen as a matter of law acted unreasonably with regard to his own safety under present circumstances by not stopping (where? constantly?) to look for a track and a railroad, as he — working as a night watchman at a deserted worksite in the dark hours of the night — drove on the roadway keeping his eyes on the headlights of the vehicle at the gate putatively bent on trespass or theft. Other relevant circumstances include: the railroad company, in complete violation of statute and contract, had unforeseeably failed to signal either the existence of the crossing or the approach of its backing train; so far as the record shows, this spur-track was infrequently used by a train during the nighttime; Kin-chen had never seen a train use the track either during the daytime or nighttime during his few days working in the general area.
The totality of these circumstances to me indicates that Kinchen’s inattentiveness to the possibility of a railroad presents a genuine jury issue as to whether his conduct was unreasonably in disregard of his own safety, so as to bar his recovery by reason of contributory negligence — a defense that the defendant had the burden of proving.
I therefore dissent from the decision of the majority because it takes from the jury, the trier of fact, the decision whether Kin-chen’s conduct under the particular circumstances of this accident was so unreasonably in disregard of his own safety as to constitute contributory negligence as a matter of law.