Carter v. Atlanta & St. AB Ry. Co.

Decision Date19 November 1948
Docket NumberNo. 12328.,12328.
PartiesCARTER v. ATLANTA & ST. A. B. RY. CO.
CourtU.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit

J. Kirkman Jackson, of Birmingham, Ala., for appellant.

James N. Frazer, of Atlanta, Ga., and Alto V. Lee, III, of Dothan, Ala., for appellee.

Before McCORD and LEE, Circuit Judges, and MIZE, District Judge.

LEE, Circuit Judge.

This suit as originally filed by the appellant, plaintiff below, claimed damages of the appellee, defendant below, under the Federal Employers' Liability Act, 45 U.S. C.A. § 51 et seq., for injuries sustained through the negligence of defendant's employees while he was in the service of the defendant as a trainman on a train being operated by defendant in interstate commerce. By amended petition, he included a cause of action under the Federal Safety Appliance Act, 45 U.S.C.A. § 1 et seq. The injuries were alleged to have occurred during switching operations by the defendant's train crew at and near the plant of the International Paper Co., in Panama City, Florida, in connection with an interstate movement. In its answer, the defendant denied that the injuries were attributable to its negligence and alleged that the plaintiff had been hurt as the result of his own negligence which proximately contributed to the injuries. On the day of the trial, plaintiff, by amended petition, alleged that he was injured by reason of the violation by defendant of the Safety Appliance Act in permitting a car to be used in interstate commerce unequipped for coupling automatically by impact. The case was tried to a jury, and, upon request of the defendant, the court below in its charge instructed the jury that plaintiff's injuries were in no wise attributable to a violation of the Safety Appliance Act, and that the jury should not consider this element in arriving at a verdict. The trial resulted in a verdict for the defendant, and from the judgment entered thereon, the plaintiff appealed.

The evidence is without serious conflict and may be briefly summarized as follows: While the train of defendant was at Panama City, it engaged in switching operations which were under the supervision of the plaintiff, who was acting in the stead of the conductor who at the time was filling in some reports in a nearby shack. Early in the switching operation, a woodrack car, loaded with pulpwood, was spotted on the main-line track; later in the switching operations, it became necessary to couple on to and to move it. Just prior thereto, the engine had coupled onto some seven or eight boxcars, and the engineer, responding to a signal from the plaintiff, moved the string of boxcars up to the woodrack car for the purpose of making the coupling. Whether because plaintiff himself had set the coupling improperly or because the coupling was defective, the impact failed to effect automatically a coupling, and the woodrack car, from the impact, moved along the main line and onto a siding. Thereupon, the plaintiff ran after the moving car and upon overtaking it mounted its bulkhead and set the hand brake, bringing it to a stop. He testified that, when he brought the woodrack car to a stop, he looked up and saw the engine and boxcars bearing down on him out of the night at an excessive speed; that the cars attached to the moving engine struck the woodrack car a second time; and that, while the coupling worked automatically on this second contact, coupling the woodrack car with the rest of the train, the jar or jolt of the collision threw him onto the car floor, where the pulpwood, dislodged by the impact, fell and...

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8 cases
  • Beanland v. Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific Railroad Co.
    • United States
    • United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (8th Circuit)
    • 17 Mayo 1973
    ...§ 1955 at 85-86 (1940). See e. g., Knierim v. Erie Lackawanna R. R., 424 F.2d 745, 748 (2nd Cir. 1970); Carter v. Atlanta & St. Andrews Bay Ry., 170 F.2d 719, 721 (5th Cir. 1948), rev'd on other grounds, 338 U.S. 430, 70 S.Ct. 226, 94 L.Ed. 236 (1949); Wiggins v. Powell, 119 F.2d 751, 753-7......
  • New York, C. & St. LR Co. v. Affolder
    • United States
    • United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (8th Circuit)
    • 9 Junio 1949
    ...65 L.Ed. 729; Reetz v. Chicago & E. R. Co., 6 Cir., 46 F.2d 50; Bobango v. Erie R. Co., 6 Cir., 57 F.2d 667; and Carter v. Atlanta & St. A. B. Ry. Co., 5 Cir., 170 F.2d 719, that where a violation of the Safety Appliance Act is not a proximate cause of the injury but merely creates an incid......
  • Carter v. Atlanta St Andrews Bay Ry Co
    • United States
    • United States Supreme Court
    • 19 Diciembre 1949
    ...of negligence. There was a verdict against the plaintiff upon which judgment for the railroad was entered. The Court of Appeals affirmed. 170 F.2d 719. We granted certiorari because of the confusion which has developed in the application of the two statutes. 336 U.S. 935, 69 S.Ct. 749. Our ......
  • Schnautz v. United States
    • United States
    • United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (5th Circuit)
    • 3 Abril 1959
    ...part as standing alone and taken out of context. International Paper Co. v. Busby, 5 Cir., 1950, 182 F.2d 790; Carter v. Atlanta & St. A. B. Ry. Co., 5 Cir., 1948, 170 F.2d 719, reversed on other grounds 338 U.S. 430, 70 L.Ed. 226, 94 L.Ed. 236; Pasotex Pipe Line Co. v. Murray, 5 Cir., 1948......
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