Atlantic Coast Line Co v. Temple

• Decision Date: 14 March 1932
• Docket Number: No. 453,453
• Citation: 285 U.S. 143,76 L.Ed. 670,52 S.Ct. 334
• Parties: ATLANTIC COAST LINE R. CO. v. TEMPLE
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

285 U.S. 143

52 S.Ct. 334

76 L.Ed. 670

ATLANTIC COAST LINE R. CO.

v TEMPLE.

No. 453.

Argued Feb. 17, 18, 1932.

Decided March 14, 1932.

Messrs. Thomas W. Davis, of Wilmington, N. C., and Douglas McKay, of Columbia, S. C., for petitioner.

Messrs. John F. Williams, of Aiken, S. C., and R. E. Whiting, of Columbia, S. C., for respondent.

Mr. Chief Justice HUGHES delivered the opinion of the Court.

Judgment recovered by plaintiff (respondent here), in an action under the Federal Employers' Liability Act (45 USCA §§ 51-59) for the death of her intestate, was affirmed by the Supreme Court of the State. This court granted a writ of certiorari. 284 U. S. 611, 52 S. Ct. 129, 76 L. Ed. —. The question is whether there was sufficient evidence of negligence on the part of defendant to justify the submission of the case of the jury.

Plaintiff's intestate was employed by defendant as locomotive engineer of a train running between Augusta, Ga., and Sumter, S. C., in the early morning of May 20, 1921. At a point near Augusta, and about one and three-tenths miles morth of a station called Beech Island, the train was derailed, the engine overturned, and the engineer killed. The accident took place on the line of the Charleston & Western Carolina Railway Company over which defendant, the Atlantic Coast Line, had trackage rights, and the negligence charged was that the employees of the former company working on the roadbed had failed properly to spike and bolt one of the rails, causing it to spread. There were two witnesses for plaintiff. One of these, who lived near Beech Island station, testified that, while driving across the railroad at that station on the afternoon before the accident, he had seen section hands working on the railroad, apparently fixing a rail, at a point between that station and a gravel pit which was not far from the place of the accident. He 'did not pay much attention'; he 'just saw them working.' It was conclusively shown by the evidence that there was a curve on the track a little less than a mile above Beech Island station and that by reason of the contour of the land, with an intervening bluff, it was impossible for one at the crossing at the station to see the place where the wreck occurred or within at least a quarter of a mile of it. The witness knew nothing of the wreck and there was no evidence that the men whom he described had been working at the place of the accident or had any connection with the cause of the derailment. The other witness for the plaintiff had visited the scene shortly after the wreck occurred. He testified that the rail was 'torn up,' that spikes and bolts were 'laying on the cross ties,' that three or four ties were 'taken loose,' that there was no doubt the spikes had been 'pulled,' that 'it was not a matter of fixing the track and leaving them out,' that the bolts and angle bars 'had been removed certain,' that there was a dent about the middle of the rail indicating that the rail 'had been pushed in,' and that one end of the rail had been 'pulled in' and 'spiked in from the outside' making the track 'too narrow' so that a train coming from Augusta would be derailed. Thinking that 'it looked like it had been wrecked and there might be some tools,' the witness made a search, and following tracks leading to a gravel pit about fifty of sixty feet away, he found behind some bushes a crowbar used for pulling spikes and a wrench for loosening bolts; that these tools had identification marks showing that they belonged to the Southern...