Terre Haute and Indianapolis Railroad Co. v. Buck

CourtSupreme Court of Indiana
Citation96 Ind. 346
Docket Number11,104
PartiesThe Terre Haute and Indianapolis Railroad Company v. Buck, Administratrix
Decision Date05 March 1884

Rehearing Date: June 25, 1884

Reported at: 96 Ind. 346 at 362.

From the Montgomery Circuit Court.

Judgment affirmed.

J. G Williams, B. Harrison, W. H. H. Miller and J. B. Elam, for appellant.

G. W. Paul, M. D. White and J. E. Humphries, for appellee.

OPINION

Elliott, J.

On the night of December 9th, 1881, the appellee's intestate, Andrew J. Buck, took passage on one of the appellant's passenger trains at the town of Darlington for the station of Sugar Creek, not far distant. Both these places were regular stations of the company, at which passengers were received and discharged, and the train on which the deceased took passage stopped at Sugar Creek. About the time the train usually arrived at this station, and at the place where the signal whistle for the station was usually sounded, the engineer caused the customary signal to be given, and applied the brakes, but the brakes did not stop the train, and it ran by the station and was stopped on a trestle bridge, three hundred and eighty-five feet beyond the usual stopping place. The deceased stepped from the car in which he was sitting and fell through the bridge, a distance of nineteen feet, and struck upon the rocks which formed the bed of the stream spanned by the trestle-work. The night was dark, and there were no lights about the place where the train was stopped, and the length of the stop was about that ordinarily made at small passenger stations. The regular station was a safe place to alight, and the deceased lived not far distant, and was acquainted with the station and its surroundings. The station had not been called at the time the deceased left the train, but there was evidence showing that it was not the custom of the railroad company's employees to call the name of the station.

The deceased was found in the creek, and, if not delirious when first reached, very soon became so, and was taken to a house near by. It was not far from eight o'clock when he fell from the trestle-work, and the physician who reached him at half-past ten o'clock thus describes his condition: "I found him lying upon the bed on his left side, his head somewhat elevated, his body in a perspiration, right leg drawn up, left extended; there was a cut on his chin--on the left side--it was about an inch and a half long; his left ankle was swollen, blood clot on either side, and there was a bruise on his back, low down; his eyes were closed, one of the pupils of his eyes was larger than the other, one dilated and the other contracted; he seemed to be suffering pain, groaning and crying, and asking 'Where am I?' 'What has happened?' 'Where is Bess?' that is the name by which he called his wife; his sense of hearing seemed to be not acting, as he would not respond to questions except by a groan." The witness then stated that he took the temperature of his patient's body, and stated the result of his examination in detail. Visits were made on the 10th, 11th and 14th days of December, and the deceased was still suffering from the pain in his head. In answer to a question, the physician said: "He was suffering from what we call a concussion of the brain; it continued until January 14th, 1882, the day of his death." A visit was made on the 16th day of December, and from that time visits were made daily, and oftener until the death of the patient. A graphic description of the progress of the case was read from a book called "The Physician's Case Book," and from this testimony it appeared that the pain in the head and the surgical fever found present on the 10th day of December continued until the end, but that typho-malarial fever had supervened, and that the immediate cause of death was hemorrhage from the bowels. The medical witness was asked on cross-examination how the injury contributed to the death of his patient, and he answered: "By receiving a fall on the 9th of December, and in that fall receiving a concussion of the brain. There was a condition of the brain in which his nervous system was affected, and by the sprained ankle which confined him to his bed; and the injury under his jaw and on his back, by confining him to his bed, put his system in a favorable condition to take on disease--whatever the disease prevailing in the community might be, and the result of his being confined to his bed and the surgical fever he had following these injuries. He gradually drifted into malarial troubles, which were then rife in our community. The shock that his nervous system had received, and the depressing influence it had upon his system, had rendered it less able to bear the continued fever and typho-malarial fever, and this surgical fever put him in a condition to take on malarial fever, and the result of this malarial fever was hemorrhage of the bowels, from which he died." At another place in his testimony, the witness said that the injuries did, in one sense, produce the fever which resulted in death. Dr. Hopper, another physician, testified that he visited the deceased on the 11th day of January, and, in answer to an interrogatory, gave it as his opinion "That the fall contributed to his death--the injuries received from falling off the trestle." It was proved that the malarial fever was epidemic in the vicinity of Sugar Creek station, and that the deceased, prior to the fall from the trestle-work, was in robust health.

The contention of the appellant is that the evidence does not show that the injuries received by Andrew J. Buck, caused his death.

In order to discover a principle which will lead to a just decision of the question here confronting us, it will be necessary to reason from analogous cases, for we have found no case precisely in point, nor have we found in any text-writer a rule which governs such a case as this. A long settled rule of the common law, adopted and enforced in criminal cases, supplies a close analogy. One of the most philosophical of our law-writers thus states this ancient rule: "Now these propositions conduct us to the doctrine, that, whenever a blow is inflicted under circumstances to render the party inflicting it criminally responsible if death follows, he will be deemed guilty of the homicide though the person beaten would have died from other causes, or would not have died from this one had not others operated with it; provided the blow really contributed either mediately or immediately to the death, in a degree sufficient for the law's notice." 2 Bishop Cr. L., section 637. At another place this author says: "And the wound need not even be a concurrent cause; much less need it be the next proximate one; for, if it is the cause of the cause, no more is required." 2 Bishop Cr. L., section 639. The greatest names among the sages of the law are arrayed in support of this doctrine. 1 Hale P. C. 428; 1 Hawk. P. C. 93. It is sustained by the English, American and Prussian courts. It is the law of this State as declared in at least two cases, one of which was well discussed. Kelley v. State, 53 Ind. 311; Harvey v. State, 40 Ind. 516. If it is sufficient to show in cases where life and liberty are involved that the wrong was the "mediate cause," it must surely be sufficient where nothing more than money is involved.

In close agreement with the fundamental principle of which we have just spoken is the doctrine of the court in Jeffersonville, etc., R. R. Co. v. Riley, 39 Ind. 568, where it was held that the trial court properly refused to instruct the jury, in an action like this, that "the injury complained of can not be regarded as the proximate cause of death, if the deceased had a tendency to insanity and disease, and the injury received by him, producing his death, would not have produced the death of a well person." Straight in line with our own case is that of Drake v. Kiely, 93 Pa. 492. In that case a lad was taken against his will on a freight train and carried a distance of five miles, he returned home on foot, running most of the way, became ill and the ultimate result was that he became crippled in both legs, and it was held that the defendant was liable for all the injuries received. The court said the true rule is that the proximate cause must be determined by the jury upon all the facts in the case.

If we were to undertake to declare any other rule than that stated in the case cited, we should be involved in inextricable confusion, for it is clear that the passenger who suffers, as the appellee's intestate did, injuries of a serious character is entitled to some damages, and it is impossible for any one to pronounce, as matter of law, at what point the injury flowing from the wrong terminated. The only possible practical rule is that the wrong-doer, whose act is the mediate cause of the injury, shall be held for all the resulting damages, and that the question of whether his wrong was the mediate cause is one for the jury. But there are other cases sustaining the doctrine of this court. In Ginna v. Second Avenue R. R. Co., 8 Hun 494, affirmed on appeal, 67 N.Y. 596, the plaintiff received an injury through the negligence of the railroad company which resulted in the development of a poisonous discharge causing death, and the company was held liable. It was there said: "More attentive treatment might have saved the life of the young man, but its necessity was not apparently suspected. He was subjected to that which was followed and designed to be proper by the wrongful act of the defendant. That was the cause which placed his life in jeopardy, because it produced the wound whose poisonous discharges resulted in his death." So it may be justly said of this case; it was the wrongful act of the...

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