Atlantic Coast Line Co v. Ford

• Decision Date: 09 January 1933
• Docket Number: No. 194,194
• Citation: 287 U.S. 502,77 L.Ed. 457,53 S.Ct. 249
• Parties: ATLANTIC COAST LINE R. CO. et al. v. FORD
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

287 U.S. 502

53 S.Ct. 249

77 L.Ed. 457

ATLANTIC COAST LINE R. CO. et al.

v FORD.

No. 194.

Argued Dec. 14, 1932.

Decided Jan. 9, 1933.

Appeal from the Supreme Court of the State of South Carolina.

Messrs. Henry E. Davis, of Florence, S.C., and Thomas W. Davis, of Wilmington, N.C., for appellants.

Mr. W. C. Davis, of Manning, S.C., for appellee.

Mr. Justice SUTHERLAND delivered the opinion of the Court.

This is an action brought by appellee in a South Carolina state court of first instance against the railroad company and its engineer to recover for injuries said to have been sustained by her as the result of a collision at a public highway crossing between an automobile in which she was riding and a passenger train of the company. The complaint alleges several grounds of negligence, but the only one necessary for our consideration is that appellants negligently failed to give the crossing signals provided for by the state law.

By section 4903, vol. 3 of the Code of South Carolina (1922), a railroad company is required to place on each locomotive engine a bell of at least thirty pounds weight and a steam or air whistle, and 'such bell shall be rung or such whistle sounded by the engineer * * * at the distance of at least five hundred yards from the * * * traveled place, and be kept ringing or whistling until the engine * * * has crossed such highway. * * *'

Section 4925 provides: 'Injuries at Crossings—Penalty and Damages.—If a person is injured in his person or property by collision with the engines or any car or cars of a railroad corporation at a crossing, and it appears that the corporation neglected to give the signals required by this Chapter, and that such neglect contributed to the injury, the corporation shall be liable for all damages caused by the collision, or to a fine recoverable by indictment, as provided in the preceding Section, unless it is shown that in addition to a mere want of ordinary care the person injured, or the person having charge of his person or property, was at the time of the collision guilty of gross or wilful negligence, or was acting in violation of the law, and that such gross wilful negligence or unlawful act contributed to the injury.'

Appellants answered the complaint, denying liability and setting up affirmative defenses. The cause was tried before the court and a jury. At the close of the evidence, appellants moved for a directed verdict in their favor upon the ground, among others, that sections 4903 and 4925 of the Code, as they had been construed, constituted a violation of the due process of law and equal protection of law clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment, and an unlawful attempt to regulate interstate commerce. The motion was overruled, and the jury, after being instructed, returned a verdict in favor of plaintiff upon which judgment was duly entered. The state Supreme Court (168 S.E. 143) affirmed the judgment.

The attack upon the statute as contravening the due process clause is based upon the contention, shortly stated, that the state Supreme Court, by affirming the judgment, in effect construed the statute to mean that failure to give the prescribed signals is negligence per se and raises a presumption that such failure is the proximate cause of the collision and warrants recovery by the plaintiff without further proof, and that such presumption does not vanish from the case upon the introduction of evidence by the railroad company, but remains throughout to be considered by the jury as evidence. We have italicized the words which are said by appellants to constitute the crux of their contention.

Appellants review many decisions of the state Supreme Court dealing with the question, which seem not to be altogether in agreement; but it is not necessary to analyze these decisions and from them attempt to extract the rule. The court below has done this and reached a conclusion contrary to that advanced by appellants; and that is enough for the purposes of our decision here. If the assailed provisions as construed and applied in the present case afford due process, appellants cannot complain that in earlier cases they were so construed and applied as to deny due process to other litigants. Compare Great Northern Ry. Co. v. Sunburst Oil & Refining Co., 287 U.S. 358, 53 S.Ct. 145, 77 L.Ed. 360 (Docember 5, 1932); Patterson v. Colorado, 205 U.S. 454, 460, 27 S.Ct. 556, 51 L.Ed. 879, 10 Ann.Cas. 689; Brinkerhoff-Faris Trust & Sav. Co. v. Hill, 281 U.S. 673, 680, 50 S.Ct. 451, 74 L.Ed. 1107; Dunbar v. City of New York, 251 U.S. 516, 518, 519, 40 S.Ct. 250, 64 L.Ed. 384; Tidal Oil Co. v. Flanagan, 263 U.S. 444, 452, 44 S.Ct. 197, 68 L.Ed. 382; Fleming v. Fleming, 264 U.S. 29, 31, 44 S.Ct. 246, 68 L.Ed. 547.

The jury, upon this subject, was instructed as follows:

'* * * Under that statute, it is incumbent upon the plaintiff here first to prove that the crossing signals were not given, * * * and then she must prove, and prove both by the preponderance of the evidence as I have already charged you, that that failure to give the signals contributed to the injury of which she is complaining. * * *

'Where the signals are not given as in the manner provided by statute, and an injury occurs at the crossing of railroad and public highway, a presumption would arise that the failure to give the signals is the proximate cause of the injury. But such presumption would be rebuttable by evidence, and the jury should consider any and all evidence that may be in the case in determining the question of proximate cause. * * * The failure to give these signals raises that presumption, but it is rebuttable; it is not a conclusive presumption. That may be rebutted by the defendants by its (their) evidence, and as stated here, all the evidence must be considered in determining the question of proximate cause.'

Immediately preceding the charge to the jury, the trial court, ruling upon the motion for a directed verdict, had quoted the words of this court in Western & A.R.R. v. Henderson, 279 U.S. 639, 643, 49 S.Ct. 445, 447, 73 L.Ed. 884, used in comparing the Georgia statute there under consideration with the Mississippi statute considered in Mobile, J. & K.C.R. Co. v. Turnipseed, 219 U.S. 35, 31 S.Ct. 136, 55 L.Ed. 78, 32 L.R.A.(N.S.) 226, Ann. Cas. 1912A, 463: 'Each of the state enactments raises a presumption from the fact of injury caused by the running of locomotives or cars. The Mississippi statute created merely a temporary inference of fact that vanished upon the introduction of opposing evidence. (Citing cases.) That of...