Adams v. Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railroad Company

• Decision Date: 05 December 1925
• Docket Number: 26,225
• Parties: E. J. ADAMS, Administrator of the Estate of LLOYD L. ADAMS, Deceased, Appellee, v. MISSOURI-KANSAS-TEXAS RAILROAD COMPANY, Appellant
• Court: Kansas Supreme Court

241 P. 1086

119 Kan. 783

E. J. ADAMS, Administrator of the Estate of LLOYD L. ADAMS, Deceased, Appellee, v. MISSOURI-KANSAS-TEXAS RAILROAD COMPANY, Appellant

No. 26,225

Supreme Court of Kansas

December 5, 1925

Decided July, 1925.

Appeal from Linn district court; EDWARD C. GATES, judge.

Judgment reversed and cause remanded.

SYLLABUS

SYLLABUS BY THE COURT.

RAILROADS--Accidents at Crossings--Negligence--Obstruction of View by Train. The fact that a train which is standing upon a sidetrack near a highway crossing, but no part of which rests thereon, is so placed as to obstruct the view of a train approaching on the main track cannot constitute an independent ground of negligence upon which to base liability of the company in an action against it growing out of a crossing collision. In such a case the court will not enter upon the inquiry whether the needs of the road with respect to its operation might have been met by placing the standing train in a different position such as to afford a view of an approaching train at a greater distance.

W. W Brown, C. E. Pile, both of Parsons, and Douglas Hudson, of Fort Scott, for the appellant.

James G. Sheppard, of Fort Scott, John A. Hall, of Pleasanton, and C. F. Newman, of Springfield, Mo., for the appellee.

Alfred G. Armstrong, of Topeka, as amicus curiae.

OPINION

MASON, J.:

Lloyd L. Adams was killed in a collision between the Ford automobile in which he was riding and a freight train of the Missouri - Kansas - Texas Railroad Company. His administrator brought an action against the company and recovered a judgment, from which this appeal is taken.

Several grounds of negligence were alleged and were submitted to the jury. The conduct of the defendant upon which the verdict was based (as shown by a special finding) was in causing the engine of another freight train on a sidetrack to stand in such a place as to obstruct the view of the crossing.

The accident occurred near the station at Centerville. The train which struck the automobile came from the northeast. The other freight train stood upon a sidetrack to the southeast of the main track, and was also headed southwest. The automobile came from the southeast. The front of the engine of the standing freight train was about sixty-five feet from the crossing. According to the findings, this train and engine obstructed the view of the approaching train until the automobile was within fifteen feet of the point of collision; the automobile (the brakes of which were shown by evidence in behalf of the plaintiff to have been in good condition) was going five miles an hour and could have been stopped within fifteen feet.

The fact that at a railroad crossing the view is obstructed by cars on the track is of course always to be taken into account in considering the character and extent of precautions against collision to be taken by both the company's employees and travelers on the highway; but whether it can in itself constitute an independent ground of actionable negligence is a matter requiring now to be determined. In Denton v. Railway Co., 90 Kan. 51, 54, 55, 133 P. 558, the difference in opinion on the subject is noted. The decision there cited as tending to favor the affirmative of the proposition (Reed v. The Chicago, St. P., M. & O. Ry. Co., 74 Iowa 188, 37 N.W. 149) did not commit the court rendering it to that view, as is evident from a number of later decisions, in one of which this language is used:

"That the placing of freight cars upon a sidetrack so as to obstruct the view of a crossing would not be deemed as an independent...