Court Opinion

ID: 8868130
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2022-11-26 18:12:42.637575+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:06:04.458909
License: Public Domain

WOODS, Circuit Judge
(concurring). When this case was first here, our ruling was that “the declaration * * * counts upon *372negligence, and not upon willfulness, as the ground of action,” and that it was therefore unnecessary to express an opinion whether, upon the facts disclosed, the action could be maintained for a willful injury. Apparently for the purpose of raising that issue the declaration was amended by inserting the word “willful” to qualify the alleged negligence, so that as amended the charge is that the defendant’s servants, with gross, reckless, wanton, and willful negligence, failed to reduce the speed of the engine, and to give any signal or warning to the deceased and his child of the approach of the train by which they were run down. Manifestly, the amendment did not affect the essential character of the charge. It is one thing to qllege the willful or intentional infliction of an injury, and quite another to allege the willful doing or omitting to do something which caused, or contributed to the causing of, the injury. The defendant’s servants, according to the amended averment, willfully (that is to say, knowingly and purposely) failed to reduce the speed, and to give to the deceased any signal or warning of the approach of the train; but it is not alleged or implied that there was in the mind of the engineer or fireman any intention to inflict injury, or any perception that the deceased and his son were not properly regardful of the situation, and would avoid harm, as they might easily have done, by stepping aside. “Willful or intentional injury,”' as we said before, “implies positive and aggressive conduct, and not the mere negligent omission of duty”; and the willful omission to do something which duty requires, it is equally clear, does not of itself imply an intention to injure, and such intention should not be imputed unless directly proven, or, under the circumstances, that result must have been perceived to be probable. In other words, as a matter of pleading, it is the same whether an act or an omission to act be alleged to have been negligent or intentional. If it be sought to charge a willful injury, the intention to inflict it must be directly and explicitly alleged.. As a matter of proof, it may be enough to show negligence of such gross, wanton, or willful character as to justify the inference of an intention or willingness to injure. It is easy to suppose circumstances or conditions which, if they did not in the particular case justify an omission to retard the speed of a train, or to sound the whistle sooner than it was sounded, would exclude all suspicion of bad faith. The engineer in this instance might have seen the deceased upon the track 2,000 feet away, instead of 700 feet, as he testified; and, disregarding his testimony, the jury may have inferred that he ought to have seen, and did sooner see, the deceased upon the track. But, that conceded, there ¿s no evidence whatever to justify an inference that he entertained any purpose or had any thought of harming the deceased or his boy. The affirmative testimony of a number of witnesses is that the alarm whistle was sounded when1 the engine was near 700 feet from the point of collision, and against that is the testimony of a single witness that she heard neither bell nor whistle. The affirmative testimony, it is clear, ought not to be considered as overborne by the negative; but, whether the truth in this respect was one way or the other; the case was, at most, one of negligence only, against one whose position as a trespasser made a right of action on that ground alone im*373possible. That he was a trespasser upon the track of the defendant’s road is conceded in the brief for the defendant in error. The trial proceeded throughout on that theory, and no question, it is admitted, was made upon the point; but it is insisted that the defendant’s servants, notwithstanding the negligence of the deceased, could, after discovering the peril, have averted it by timely warning, or by slackening the speed of the train. On this point reference is made to Cahill v. Railway Co., 46 U. S. App. 85, 20 C. C. A. 184, 74 Fed. 285; Railroad Co. v. Morlay, 58 17. S. App. 526, 30 C. C. A. 6, 86 Fed. 240; Anderson v. Hopkins, 63 U. S. App. 533, 33 C. C. A. 346, 91 Fed. 77, and other cases, as overthrowing the doctrine that there can be uo recovery for an injury to a person wrongfully upon a railroad track unless the injury was willful or intentional. The Cahill Case is plainly distinguishable; and the doctrine of the Anderson and Morlay Cases is manifestly not applicable here, because in this case the deceased and his son were not perceived by the engineer to be in a position of peril from which they were not likely to escape by their own exertions.
The only tangible proof of negligence which went to the jury was that the train by which the deceased was killed was running at the rate of fifty to sixty miles an hour, in violation of an ordinance of the town which forbade a speed exceeding ten miles an hour. The proof of that ordinance should have been withdrawn from the jury. It consisted of a copy of the ordinance, with a certificate of the town clerk attached, verifying the ordinance, and certifying that it was passed on July 7,1877, and was duly published. This certificate was attached to the ordinance as found.in a printed-book of ordinances, which contained copies of other ordinances of the town of Venice; and it is claimed, on the statement of a witness, that a copy of that pamphlet was kept or preserved by the town board. The hook, however, did not purport to be published by authority of the hoard of trustees or city council, and therefore was not admissible, under the statute, as evidence of the passage and publication of the ordinances found in it. Lindsay v. City of Chicago, 115 Ill. 120, 3 W. E. 443. And while, as shown by the opinion in that case, the certified copy of the ordinance was competent and prima facie evidence of the passage and°pubUeatioii of the ordinance, yet when it was shown, as it was, that in the original record there was no notation at the foot of the ordinance of the fact or date of publication, upon which the clerk could have based his certificate, and further was shown by the testimony of the clerk, who made the certificate, that he knew nothing of the fact, and did not intend to certify to the publication o' the ordinance, but signed the certificate as prepared and presents to him by counsel for the defendant in error, the force of the certificate in that respect was destroyed, and there remained no adequate proof of the publication of the ordinance. But, if the publication of the ordinance were conceded, its violation by the defendant was, at most, evidence of negligence only, and afforded no ground for recovery for injury to a trespasser. The train by which the intestate was killed was running on time, and at its usual speed, as for two .years or more it had been run, and as, to the knowledge of the de*374ceased, it had been run for six weeks or more before the date of the accident. He probably had no knowledge of the ordinance, and certainly neither counted, nor had the right to count, upon the train being run in accordance with its requirement. The judgment below is reversed, and the cause remanded, with directions to grant a new trial.