Atlantic Coast Line R. Co. v. Voss
| Decision Date | 28 January 1939 |
| Parties | ATLANTIC COAST LINE R. CO. SAME v. VOSS. SAME v. THE REDEMPTORISTS. |
| Court | Florida Supreme Court |
Error to Circuit Court, Hillsborough County; Harry N. Sandler Judge.
Actions by Henry S. Voss and by The Redemptorists against the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad Company for personal injuries and property damages, respectively, resulting from a collision between defendant's train and The Redemptorists' automobile. Judgments for plaintiffs, and defendant brings error.
Affirmed on condition of remittitur.
COUNSEL W. E. Kay, of Jacksonville, T. Paine Kelly, of Tampa, and Bussey, Mann & Barton, of St. Petersburg, for plaintiff in error.
Worth Bivens & Lively, of Tampa, for defendants in error.
Two writs of error are here consolidated. The first is to a final judgment against Atlantic Coast Line Railroad Company in favor of Henry S. Voss for personal injuries alleged to have been received in a collision between a passenger train of plaintiff in error and an automobile in which Voss was riding at the time. The second is to a final judgment against Atlantic Coast Line Railroad Company in favor of The Redemptorists, a Corporation, for damages to the automobile in which Voss was riding at the time of the collision in which he (Voss) is alleged to have been injured.
The first assignment of error is predicated on the giving of the following charge to the jury:
The giving of this charge, so plaintiff in error contends, was erroneous because it placed an unlawful interpretation on Section 7051, Compiled General Laws of 1927, which is as follows: 'A railroad company shall be liable for any damage done to persons, stock or other property, by the running of the locomotives, or cars, or other machinery of such company, or for damage done by any person in the employ and service of such company, unless the company shall make it appear that their agents have exercised all ordinary and reasonable care and diligence, the presumption in all cases being against the company.'
Plaintiff in error relies on Western & Atlantic Railroad Company v. Henderson, 279 U.S. 639, 49 S.Ct. 445, 73 L.Ed. 884, and Atlantic Coast Line Railroad Company v. Richardson, 117 Fla. 10, 157 So. 17, and like cases to support this contention.
It cannot be questioned that the Georgia statute held bad in Western & Atlantic Railroad Company v. Henderson is in words and phrasing identical with the Florida statute now in question. Examination of the cases last cited discloses that the validity of statutes of this kind must depend on the interpretation given them. The Georgia statute was stricken down in the Henderson Case, supra, because the Supreme Court of that State held it to create an inference with the effect of evidence which could be weighed against opposing evidence and that it should prevail unless such opposing testimony is found by the jury to predominate.
The Florida statute here quoted has been before this Court repeatedly and has each time been upheld but we have never given it any such interpretation as was given the Georgia statute by the Supreme Court of that State which the Supreme Court of the United States held to be in violation of the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, U.S.C.A.Const in the...
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...in the trial court to assail the statute on any ground upon which rests our decision in the Henderson Case.'(2) In Atlantic Coast Line R. Co. v. Voss, 136 Fla. 32, 186 So. 199, the court said: 'The evidence . . . was in conflict . . . and while some evidence . . . may be construed as suppor......
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...that it is prejudicial error to make any reference whatever to the presumption in the court's charge to the jury. Atlantic Coast Line R. Co. v. Voss, 136 Fla. 32, 186 So. 199; Loftin v. Skelton, 152 Fla. 437, 12 So.2d 175; Powell v. American Sumatra Tobacco Co., 154 Fla. 227, 17 So.2d 391. ......
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...So. 426; Atlantic Coast Line R. Co. v. Price, Fla., 46 So.2d 481; Van Allen v. Atlantic Coast Line R. Co., supra; Atlantic Coast Lien R. Co. v. Voss, 136 Fla. 32, 186 So. 199. Motorists are on notice that a train has the right-of-way and that they (motorists) are required to look and listen......
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...too fast and in not giving the proper signals and maintaining the proper lookout. As to the statute, appellee cites Atlantic Coast Line v. Voss, 136 Fla. 32, 186 So. 199, 200, holding that "if any material evidence is offered, by the railroad company tending to show the exercise of ordinary......