Alabama G. S. Ry. Co. v. Coggins

• Citation: 88 F. 455
• Decision Date: 05 July 1898
• Docket Number: 520.
• Parties: ALABAMA G.S. RY. CO. v. COGGINS.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Sixth Circuit

88 F. 455

ALABAMA G.S. RY. CO. v. COGGINS.

No. 520.

United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit.

July 5, 1898

Wm. L Frierson, for plaintiff in error.

Champe S. Andrews, for defendant in error.

Before TAFT and LURTON, Circuit Judges, and SEVERENS, District Judge.

TAFT Circuit Judge.

This is a writ of error to reverse the judgment for the plaintiff below in an action for damages for a personal injury inflicted in Georgia. The plaintiff, Coggins, was a lineman or telegraph repairer in the employ of the Western Union Telegraph Company. His wages were $50 a month, and his expenses. He was furnished by his employer with an annual pass over the defendant's road. Upon what consideration this annual pass was issued by the railroad company to the telegraph company did not appear in the evidence. The contract was called for by plaintiff's counsel, and was not produced. The court charged the jury that the rights of Coggins were the same as if he had paid his fare, and this though excepted to, is not assigned for error. The evidence for the plaintiff tended to show the following state of facts: Coggins was directed by his superior to take passage on this train, which was a freight train carrying passengers for Crudup, where the telegraph line needed repair. At Rising Fawn, Ga., an intermediate station, the train stopped to do some switching. The caboose in which Coggins was riding stopped about 1,500 feet from the station. This was the usual place for passengers by freight trains to alight. The only practicable way of reaching the station from this point was to walk between the main track and the house or scale track which lay parallel to the main track on the right. Coggins had inquired of the brakeman how long the train would remain at Rising Fawn, and, on being told that its stay would be half an hour in length, alighted from the caboose, and walked between the tracks towards the station, to inquire whether there were any telegraph messages to him from his superior. It was customary for his superior, when he was out on the line, to telegraph orders to points where his train was likely to stop. As Coggins walked towards the station, he saw part of the train upon which he had come backing towards him on the main track. As it approached, he concluded it would be safer to cross over near to the house or scale track, lying parallel. A cut-off or switch track crossing diagonally from the main track to the house track lay just in front of him, and at his side. He crossed this, towards the scale track. His left side was not towards the approaching train. As he stepped over the second rail of the cut-off track, he heard a brakeman on the ground back of him calling in a loud voice to another brakeman on the approaching train. To see the cause of the calling, he turned half round towards the right, just as he reached the end of the ties of the cut-off track. As he did so, the cars, which, instead of continuing on the main track, as he expected, had been switched on to the cut-off track, struck his right shoulder, whirled him about, and threw him on his back, with his left arm under the wheels. He was more or less familiar with the yard at Rising Fawn, and the brakeman engaged in switching the train had told him that they were about to switch a number of cars on to the furnace tracks, which lay to the east of the main track, and on the side opposite to the house or scale track. Hence he did not anticipate that the train, as it approached, would be switched over on the house track cut-off. Both the brakemen engaged in switching the train were where they could have seen Coggins had they looked; and one did see him, but was made so speechless at the sight of his danger as not to give him warning, and the other one, who was on the rear end of the backing train, did call, but not until it was too late for Coggins to escape. This is the case for the plaintiff.

The defendant introduced evidence to show that the accident occurred 15 or 20 minutes after the train stopped at Rising Fawn; that Coggins was loitering along between the tracks, talking with acquaintances whom he met there; that he had no ground to anticipate the receipt of telegraphic orders at that point; and that he was standing on or near the track, looking up at the telegraph wires, when struck. Counsel for the railroad company excepted to that part of the charge of the court in which, after explaining the high degree of care a railroad company owes to its passengers, the court submitted to the jury as an issue of fact whether Coggins was to be regarded as a passenger when he was injured. Upon this point the court said:

'Now, then, when the company undertook to carry him on this freight car so long and while he was a passenger, the company owed to him the highest degree of care for his protection, for his safety, as it did to any other passenger; provided, of course, that a passenger who takes or undertakes to ride on a freight car understands there is a difference between that and a passenger car, that it is managed differently, that the appliances are different, that high degree of care, such as it might practically exercise with a freight train as distinguished from a passenger train. The increased danger of riding on a freight train as compared with a passenger train the passenger undertook himself, and the company was required to exercise care of the highest character in the management of a freight train, but not of the same degree it would be bound to do in a passenger train.

'Now, when they reached Rising Fawn, that not being the plaintiff's place of destination, if he alighted from the car intending to go direct to the depot for a particular business purpose, and with the intention of returning when that purpose was accomplished, he would, while going to and from the depot, exercising the proper diligence due from a passenger, remain a passenger, and would be entitled to the degree of care belonging to a passenger. Now, that rule applies until he had time to get off the car, going along exercising reasonable prudence to do so, attend to his business (if he had any), and return, and no longer. The liability of the company to him as a passenger lasted only so long as to give him a reasonable time in which to get to the depot and return, after transacting his business, and did not extend to him after the lapse of that time. After that they owed him no duty, except that which they owed to any stranger,-- not to wantonly or unnecessarily injure him.

'Now, then, coming back after the train stopped: If they stopped that train at the place where it was usual for passengers to get out and alight from a train whose point of destination was there, where it was usual for passengers to get out and go to the depot on proper business, and this man Coggins got out and went along on his business, as an ordinarily prudent man would do, and was on his way to the depot, the company owed him that degree of care that it owes to its passengers not to hurt him, and so operate its trains as that during the time necessary for him to get out and back, that they would not strike him on his way, provided he was moving along the usual way of going to the depot; and if the company failed to exercise that degree of care, and he was struck and injured, it would be liable for the accident. Now, on the contrary, if, after they had got in the yard, he got out of the train, without having any business that required him to go to the depot, that not being his point of destination, or without having any particular business to go to the depot, and instead of going by the direct and usual route and within a reasonable time, such as any other man (a prudent man) would have required to go to the depot; and if, instead of that, he, out of mere curiosity, got out to look through the yard and talk with the employes in the yard,-- if he stopped in the yard, and began to talk and loiter about the yards there in conversation, or if he began to look at the overhead wires, as one of the witnesses indicates probably he did (at least, there is a silent proof that tends to show that), -- why, then, in each of these contingencies, he would cease to be a passenger, but would be there on the switch yard at his peril; and the only duty the defendant company would owe to him in such a situation as that would be the duty not to wantonly or unnecessarily injure him, and they would owe him no greater duty than they would owe to a stranger in the yard without any business.'

The foregoing states the law...