Pennsylvania R. Co. v. Goldenbaum

• Citation: 269 A.2d 229
• Parties: The PENNSYLVANIA RAILROAD COMPANY, a Pennsylvania corporation, Defendant Below, Appellant, v. Shirley GOLDENBAUM, Plaintiff Below, Appellee.
• Decision Date: 06 August 1970
• Court: United States State Supreme Court of Delaware

Page 229

269 A.2d 229

The PENNSYLVANIA RAILROAD COMPANY, a Pennsylvania corporation, Defendant Below, Appellant, v. Shirley GOLDENBAUM, Plaintiff Below, Appellee.

Supreme Court of Delaware.

Aug. 6, 1970.

Reargument Denied Sept. 10, 1970.

Upon appeal from Superior Court. Reversed.

Jackson W. Raysor, of Tunell & Raysor, Georgetown, for defendant below, appellant.

John Merwin Bader, Wilmington, for plaintiff below, appellee.

WOLCOTT, C.J., and CAREY and HERRMANN, JJ., sitting.

HERRMANN, Justice:

This appeal arises in a railroad crossing automobile accident case. There was a jury verdict for the plaintiff, widow of John Goldenbaum who was killed in the accident, against the defendant Railroad Company. The latter appeals on the ground that prejudicial error was committed by the Trial Judge in his instructions to the jury.

I.

These determinative facts are undisputed:

Goldenbaum was a passenger in an automobile being operated by William Travers in an easterly direction on Route 20 near Seaford at night. The automobile and the defendant's train collided at the railroad crossing of Route 20 and the Cambridge branch line. Travers was familiar with the crossing, having driven over it twice each day, to and from work, for some time. The train blocked the crossing at the time of the collision. The Travers automobile struck the side of the locomotive at the second wheel journal.

In each direction on Route 20, on its approaches to the railroad crossing, there were erected a standard railroad 'cross-buck' sign and a standard State Highway Department sign warning of the existence of the crossing. On the night of the accident, the cross-buck sign which would have faced Travers was down as the result of a previous accident. There were no warning lights or other devices at the crossing.

The railroad was a single track intersecting the highway at an angle of about 22 degrees. As a result, the train here involved approached the crossing from the same general direction as the Travers car, rather than at the usual right angle at which the beam of the headlight of an oncoming locomotive may have been seen. From the viewpoint of Travers, moreover, the railroad track was partially obscured by a fence and a mill. The train, consisting of a locomotive and 40 cars, approached the crossing at a speed of approximately 10 m.p.h.; the bell and horn were being sounded. When the train was about 150 feet from the highway, members of the crew saw an unidentified automobile speeding in a westerly direction on Route 20 (the opposite direction to that of the Travers car) toward the crossing. It being obvious that the unidentified motor vehicle was not stopping, the engineer applied the train emergency brakes. The unidentified vehicle barely cleared the front of the locomotive and proceeded on its way. The train continued over the crossing and came to a stop thereon, the front of the locomotive at the southerly shoulder of the highway, so that the crossing was completely blocked as the Travers car approached from the west. The unidentified car was last seen by the crewmen as it passed the Travers car, approaching from the opposite direction, at a point about 1000 feet away from the crossing. One witness testified that Travers was driving at about 45 m.p.h.; a state police officer estimated his speed as having been in excess of 70 m.p.h. These facts impel the conclusion that the train had blocked the crossing for less than 30 seconds at the time of the collision.

II.

The Railroad Company complains that the Trial Court refused to instruct the jury in accordance with its following requests for instructions:

'The Duty Of The Railroad #1

'It is a well-settled principle of law that due care on the part of a railroad company at a point where its tracks cross a public highway, means the timely employment of such methods as under the conditions there existing would ordinarily be necessary to notify persons attempting to cross said tracks of the approach of its trains.

'But it is equally well-settled that due care, on the part of individuals on the public highway approaching such railroad crossings, means that they must use all the prudence, care and caution that a reasonably prudent and careful person would use under similar circumstances.

'Therefore, if you find that the methods employed by the railroad at this crossing were adequate to give timely warning to persons on the highway approaching the crossing with such care and caution as would a reasonable prudent and careful person under the circumstances then existing, then the absence of different or additional means of warning would not be a proximate cause of the accident, and your verdict must be for the defendant railroad unless you find by a preponderance of the evidence that the train crew was in some way negligent and that negligence was a proximate cause of the accident.

'The Duty Of The Railroad #2

'On the other hand, the railroad contends that its locomotive was in the crossing and blocking the highway for a sufficient period of time that the driver of the vehicle in which the plaintiff's husband was riding should have observed the train upon the crossing and should have avoided the accident.

'Under ordinary conditions, the presence of a train upon or passing over a crossing is, itself, adequate notice to a traveler approaching the crossing of the obstruction thereof and it is not incumbent on the railroad company to give any additional warning of danger. The reason for this rule of law is that those in charge of the train are justified in believing the driver of the automobile equipped with proper lights and brakes will approach the crossing at a reasonable speed and will be able to observe the train on the crossing and to stop in time to avoid a collision.

'Therefore, if you find that the locomotive was blocking the crossing at a time when the motor vehicle was a sufficient distance from the crossing that the motor vehicle, if operated at a lawful and reasonable speed, could have been brought to a stop and the collision thus avoided, then your verdict must be for the defendant railroad.'

In support of the above requests for instructions, the Railroad Company contended that in imposing standards of care as to warnings owed by it to motorists at a crossing, the law differentiates between due warning of the approach of a train to the crossing, on the one hand, and due warning of a train lawfully blocking the crossing, on the other. In support of this contention, the Railroad Company relied upon Philadelphia & R. Ry. Co. v. Dillon, 1 W.W.Harr. 247, 114 A. 62 (1921) wherein the plaintiff's automobile collided with an unlighted freight car which was standing on the tracks at a street intersection at night. This Court there stated:

'The train was lawfully across the highway. The absence of lights on the train, or shown by the trainmen, or other signals to travelers of the presence of the train there is the negligence charged. It is not in itself negligence for a railroad company to allow a train of cars to remain a reasonable or lawful length of time across a highway. * * *. The absence of such lights or warning signals does not of itself prove that the company was negligent as to the plaintiffs. * * *. There was no statute or ordinance which required such lights or warning, or regulating the speed of or lights on the automobile. The trainmen and the driver of the automobile each had a right to presume that the other would act as a reasonable person under all the conditions and surroundings of the crossing until the contrary should appear. * * *.

'Here, then, the railroad company had a right to assume that the plaintiffs would act in reasonable way to avoid running into the train of box cars while it was lawfully standing across the highway. If the defendant's trainmen had a right to assume that a reasonably careful man driving an automobile on a highway at night would use such lights and adopt such a rate of speed as that he could bring his machine to a standstill within the distance that he could plainly see by the lights on his machine a railroad box car twelve feet high standing across the highway motionless on a railroad track, and completely obstructing his...