Anderson v. Davis

• Decision Date: 17 March 1922
• Docket Number: No. 22678.,22678.
• Citation: 151 Minn. 454,187 N.W. 224
• Parties: ANDERSON v. DAVIS, Director General of Railroads.
• Court: Minnesota Supreme Court

151 Minn. 454

187 N.W. 224

ANDERSON

v.DAVIS, Director General of Railroads.

No. 22678.

Supreme Court of Minnesota.

March 17, 1922.

Appeal from District Court, Carlton County; C. R. Magney, Judge.

Action by William Anderson against James C. Davis, Director General of Railroads. Verdict for plaintiff. Defendant's motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict or for new trial denied, and from such order the defendant appeals. Order reversed and judgment for defendant.

Syllabus by the Court

Stopping an automobile upon a railway track at a highway crossing from which a train cannot be seen until within six hundred feet of the crossing without any necessity for doing so is negligence.

The rule, that a person suddenly confronted by an impending danger is not chargeable with negligence for placing himself in a position of greater danger in his attempt to escape, does not absolve him from the charge of negligence where his own negligent act exposed him to the peril. M. L. Countryman, of St. Paul, and Baldwin, Baldwin, Holmes & Mayall, of Duluth, for appellant.

John and John D. Jenswold, of Duluth, for respondent.

TAYLOR, C.

On August 5, 1919, while the Great Northern Railway was under federal control, one of its passenger trains collided with plaintiff's automobile at a grade crossing within the limits of the city of Cloquet but outside the built up portion of the city, injuring plaintiff and damaging his automobile. Plaintiff sued for damages and recovered a verdict. Defendant made a motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict or for a new trial, and appeals from an order denying the motion.

The Great Northern Railway has a double track which crosses the highway at nearly a right angle at the place of the accident. The tracks are about fifteen feet apart from center to center. The southerly track is used by east-bound trains; the northerly by west-bound trains. The Northern Pacific Railway has a track which crosses the highway about 40 feet north of the northerly Great Northern track. The Great Northern tracks curve through a cut some five or six hundred feet east of the crossing, and a train coming from the east is not visible at the crossing until it emerges from this cut. Plaintiff worked in a paper mill near Cloquet but resided on a farm some twelve miles from the paper mill and drove to and from his work in a Ford automobile. He had driven over this road and this crossing daily for more than three months and was perfectly familiar with it. He also knew that a Great Northern passenger train went west daily at about the hour of the accident. The employees of the paper mill worked in three ‘shifts.’ At the time of the accident, plaintiff was in the shift which began work at four o'clock in the afternoon, and the accident happened shortly before that hour. Plaintiff approached the railroad from the south. As he was approaching it, he saw some section men at work near the crossing, and a handcar which had been placed on the west side of the highway south of the tracks. When he was forty-five or fifty feet from the track a man standing by the handcar held up his hand, which plaintiff took as a signal that this man, although a stranger, wished to speak to him. He had ample time and room to stop before reaching the tracks but drove onto the south track and then stopped, but left his engine running. Before turning to the man who had given the signal, he looked to the east again and saw a locomotive coming out of the cut five or six hundred feet away. He says he waited a second or two to see whether the train was on a Great Northern track or the Northern Pacific track, and seeing it was on a Great Northern track he started his car and passed from the south track to the north track where he was struck by the locomotive which was going west on the north track. He says that he knew that east-bound trains ran on one track and west-bound on the other but did not know on which track the west-bound trains ran. He says that the train was within two hundred and fifty or three hundred feet of the crossing when he started his car, and why he did not see that the train was on the north track and realize that by starting forward he was putting himself directly in front of it is difficult to understand. If he had remained on the south track he...