Philadelphia & R. Ry. Co. v. Eisenhart

Citation280 F. 271
Decision Date28 April 1922
Docket Number2829.
PartiesPHILADELPHIA & R. RY. CO. v. EISENHART.
CourtUnited States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (3rd Circuit)

Wm Clarke Mason, of Philadelphia, Pa., for plaintiff in error.

Frank F. Davis, of New York City, for defendant in error.

Before BUFFINGTON, WOOLLEY, and DAVIS, Circuit Judges.

WOOLLEY Circuit Judge.

The cars of a freight train were being distributed to several tracks in the yards of the defendant at East Penn Pennsylvania. Eisenhart, the conductor, was riding on a draft of two cars which had been cut from the train and kicked to a siding. His task was to stop them at their destination. While these cars were still in motion the train parted by reason of the opening of couplers and another draft of cars broke away and, following down on the same track without a brakeman collided with the car on which Eisenhart was riding, throwing him to the ground and causing him injury.

Eisenhart brought this action, charging negligence to the defendant for violating both the Safety Appliance Act and the rule of common law. Safety Appliance Act, Sec. 2, 27 Stat. 531, and amendments (Comp. St. Sec. 8606). He had a verdict. The defendant sued out this writ of error.

The case was tried mainly on the liability of the defendant for operating a car with a defective coupler in violation of the Safety Appliance Act, carrying, of course, the advantage to the plaintiff of relief from the law of assumption of risk and contributory negligence. The defendant maintains by this writ that under the evidence, as well as by a proper interpretation of several decisions of the Supreme Court construing the Safety Appliance Act, the plaintiff did not bring himself within the Act and that, in consequence, his right to recover, if any, was on the counts charging negligence under the rule of common law with its burden of assumption of risk and contributory negligence, and that, accordingly, the trial court erred in submitting the case on the statute.

Obviously, the plaintiff's injury was due to the uncoupling of the train at a place at which uncoupling was not intended and at which the plaintiff was not working. For evidence of negligence in support of the counts under the Safety Appliance Act the plaintiff relied upon the inference of a defective coupler, drawn from the fact that the couplers uncoupled, and upon testimony to the effect that when examined after the accident the couplers showed lost motion between the lock and knuckle, enough to have caused the cars to part.

Regarding as the test of compliance with the statute the equipping of cars 'with couplers coupling automatically by impact, and which can be uncoupled without the necessity of men going between the ends of the cars,' the defendant introduced evidence to the effect that the couplers were of an accepted type and in good condition, and had, both before and after the accident, coupled and uncoupled in the way provided by the statute. Having complied with this statutory standard, the defendant maintains that nothing more was required of it; and that, as the plaintiff was not injured by reason of the couplers failing to meet this standard but was injured some distance away by reason of a collision, the case comes within the decision of the Supreme Court in Lang v. New York Central R.R. Co., 255 U.S. 455, 41 Sup.Ct. 381, 65 L.Ed. 729, where it was said that the Safety Appliance Act 'was intended to provide against the risk of coupling and uncoupling and to obviate the necessity of men going between the ends of cars. It was not * * * to provide a place of safety between colliding cars,' quoting from S.L. & S.F.R.R. Co. v. Conarty, 238 U.S. 243, 35 Sup.Ct. 785, 59 L.Ed. 1290. Reliance by the defendant upon its interpretation of the Lang decision compels a review of several decisions of the Supreme Court bearing on the Safety Appliance Act.

The first is the Conarty Case. In this case a car without a coupler or drawbar at one end was on a switch awaiting removal for repair. A switching engine with which the deceased was working came along the same track and a collision ensued. The deceased was standing on the footboard at the front of the engine and was caught between the engine and the body of the car. Had the coupler and drawbar been in place they would have kept the engine and the car sufficiently apart to have prevented the injury. They would not have prevented the collision.

The question arose whether at the time he was injured the deceased was within the class of persons for whose benefit the Safety Appliance Act required that the car be equipped with automatic couplers and drawbars of standard height. Inquiring into the general purpose of the act and the evil it was intended to prevent, the Supreme Court alluded to the danger to men going between cars to couple and uncouple them and said that the principal purpose of the enactment of the statute was 'to obviate the necessity for men going between the ends of the cars. ' It found that the deceased, 'who was not endeavoring to couple or uncouple the car or to handle it in any way, but was riding on the colliding engine, was not in a situation where the absence of the prescribed coupler and drawbar operated as a breach of a duty imposed for his benefit. ' Holding that the plaintiff was not within the class of persons for whose benefit the statute was enacted, the court denied recovery. This decision was regarded, either rightly or wrongly, as an interpretation of the Act limiting its application, so far as automatic couplers are concerned, to those whose duty it is to couple and uncouple cars. In considering the effect of this decision upon later decisions and upon the case at bar it is pertinent to note that the court very carefully pointed out that

'It is not claimed, nor could it be under the evidence, that the collision was proximately attributable to a violation of (the) provisions (of the Act) but only that had they been complied with it would not have resulted in injury to the deceased.'

In Louisville & Nashville R.R. Co. v. Layton, 243 U.S. 617, 37 Sup.Ct. 456, 61 L.Ed. 931, the next case in order, an engine, pushing a car ahead of it, came into a switch and attempted to couple a draft of five cars. It struck the cars with such force that the couplers refused to couple automatically by impact and the whole draft was driven down the track and came into collision with a standing train with such violence that the plaintiff, who was on one of the five cars for the purpose of releasing the brakes, was thrown to the track and injured. As the plaintiff did not sustain injury when coupling or uncoupling cars, the defense was based on the claim that it had been decided in the Conarty Case that the Safety Appliance Act is 'intended only for the benefit of employes injured when between cars for the purpose of coupling or uncoupling them. ' The Supreme Court, evidently desiring to dispel this view, said:

'While it is undoubtedly true that the immediate occasion for passing the laws requiring automatic couplers was the great number of deaths and injuries caused to employes who were obliged to go between cars to couple and uncouple them, yet these laws as written are by no means confined in their terms to the protection of employes only when so engaged. The language of the acts * * * makes it entirely clear that the liability in damages to employees for failure to comply with the law springs from its being made unlawful to use cars not equipped as required-- not from the position the employee may be in or the work which he may be doing at the moment when he is injured.'

Again pointing out that in the Conarty Case it was not...

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