Wickton v. Louisville & NR Co.

• Decision Date: 22 December 1930
• Citation: 45 F.2d 615
• Court: U.S. District Court — Southern District of Mississippi
• Parties: WICKTON et al. v. LOUISVILLE & N. R. CO.

45 F.2d 615 (1930)

WICKTON et al. v. LOUISVILLE & N. R. CO.

District Court, S. D. Mississippi, S. D.

December 22, 1930.

Mize & Mize & Thompson and T. J. White, all of Gulfport, Miss., and W. J. Gex, of Bay St. Louis, Miss., for plaintiffs.

Smith & Johnston, of Mobile, Ala., for defendant.

HOLMES, District Judge.

Plaintiffs' intestate drove his automobile at a grade crossing in front of a fast-approaching train of defendant and was killed instantly. Alleging that the injury resulted from the failure of the railroad employees to ring the bell or blow the whistle and otherwise to use due care in operating the train, the heirs of the deceased brought this suit and obtained judgment.

The main facts surrounding the accident were disclosed by witnesses on the trial with reasonable certainty, but with some conflict as to the speed of the train and whether the statutory signals were given. The driver was alone in the car, and no one knows whether he saw the train or heard the signals, if the latter were given, but, if he had stopped and looked, before going upon the track, there was nothing to keep him from seeing the train. There was testimony for the plaintiffs that no signals were given and for the defendant that all were duly given. The verdict in the main might, and probably should, have turned upon this controverted issue of fact. It was the duty of the jury to give attention to the evidence and rationally to reconcile or solve the conflicting testimony. It was the constitutional right of the defendant to have them do so free from arbitrary legislative dictation.

In these circumstances, at the request of the plaintiffs, the court charged the jury that, if there was such a conflict of fact in the testimony as to prevent them from being able to determine how the injury was inflicted, then they might infer negligence on the part of the defendant and render a verdict for the plaintiffs.

The instruction in exact words was proper under the Mississippi prima facie statute, as construed by the highest court of the state in its latest decisions. Columbus & G. Ry. Co. v. Lee, 149 Miss. 543, 115 So. 782; Columbus & G. Ry. Co. v. Fondren, 154 Miss. 40, 121 So. 838. This statute in full is as follows:

"1580. Injury to Persons or Property by Railroads, Prima Facie Evidence of Want of Skill. — In all actions against railroad corporations and all other corporations, companies, partnerships and individuals using engines, locomotives, or cars of any kind or description whatsoever, propelled by the dangerous agencies of steam, electricity, gas, gasoline or lever power, and running on tracks, for damages done to persons or property, proof of injury inflicted by the running of engines, locomotives or cars of any such railroad corporations or such other corporation, company, partnership or individual shall be prima facie evidence of the want of reasonable skill and care of such railroad corporation, or such other corporation, company, partnership or individual in reference to such injury. This section shall also apply to passengers and employees of railroad corporations and of such other corporations, companies, partnerships and individuals." Section 1580, Miss. Code 1930, section 1717, Hemingway's Code 1927.

The constitutionality of the above statute was directly attacked but upheld in Mobile, J. & K. C. R. Co. v. Hicks, 91 Miss. 273, 46 So. 360, 124 Am. St. Rep. 679, and, in the same case, in Mobile, J. & K. C. R. Co. v. Turnipseed, 219 U. S. 35, 31 S. Ct. 136, 138, 55 L. Ed. 78, 32 L. R. A. (N. S.) 226, Ann. Cas. 1912A, 463. In discussing the statute in the case just cited, the Supreme Court of the United States, after remarking that the law of evidence is full of presumptions either of law or fact, the former, of course, disputable, and that legislation providing that proof of one fact shall constitute prima facie evidence of the main fact in issue is but to enact a rule of evidence quite within the general power of government, said:

"We are not impressed with the argument that the supreme court of Mississippi, in construing the act, has declared that the effect of the statute is to create a presumption of liability, giving to it, thereby, an effect in excess of a mere temporary inference of fact. The statutory effect of the rule is to provide that evidence of an injury arising from the actual operation of trains shall create an inference of negligence, which is the main fact in issue. The only legal effect of this inference is to cast upon the railroad company the duty of producing some evidence to the contrary. When that is done the inference is at an end, and the question of negligence is one for the jury, upon all of the evidence. In default of such evidence, the defendant, in a civil case, must lose, for the prima facie case is enough as matter of law.

"The statute does not, therefore, deny the equal protection of the law, or otherwise fail in due process of law, because it creates a presumption of liability, since its operation is only to supply an inference of liability in the absence of other evidence contradicting such inference.

"That a legislative presumption of one fact from evidence of another may not constitute a denial of due process of law or a denial of the equal protection of the law, it is only essential that there shall be some rational connection between the fact proved and the ultimate fact presumed, and that the inference of one fact from proof of another shall not be so unreasonable as to be a purely arbitrary mandate. So, also, it must not, under guise of regulating the presentation of evidence, operate to preclude the party from the right to present his defense to the main fact thus presumed.

"If a legislative provision not unreasonable in itself, prescribing a rule of evidence, in either criminal or civil cases, does not shut out from the party affected a reasonable opportunity to submit to the jury in his defense all of the facts bearing upon the issue, there is no ground for holding that due process of law has been denied him.

"Tested by these principles, the statute as construed and applied by the Mississippi court in this case is unobjectionable. It is not an unreasonable inference that a derailment of railway cars is due to some negligence, either in construction or maintenance of the track or trains, or some carelessness in operation."

In the Turnipseed Case, just quoted from, the injury was caused by a derailment of cars, in this case by a collision between a railway locomotive and an automobile at a grade crossing.

In Western & Atlantic Railroad v. Henderson et al., 279 U. S. 639, 49 S. Ct. 445, 447, 73 L. Ed. 884, a Georgia statute, which, upon the mere fact of such a collision, raised a presumption of negligence against the...