Baltimore Co v. Goodman

• Decision Date: 31 October 1927
• Docket Number: No. 58,58
• Citation: 48 S.Ct. 24,275 U.S. 66,72 L.Ed. 167,56 A. L. R. 645
• Parties: BALTIMORE & O. R. CO. v. GOODMAN
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

275 U.S. 66

48 S.Ct. 24

72 L.Ed. 167

BALTIMORE & O. R. CO.

v GOODMAN.

No. 58.

Argued Oct. 20, 1927.

Decided Oct. 31, 1927.

Messrs. A. McL. Marshall and Byron B. Harlan, both of

Dayton, Ohio, and William A. Eggers and Morison R. Waite, both of Cincinnati, Ohio, for petitioner.

Messrs. Robert N. Brumbaugh and I. L. Jacobson, both of Dayton, Ohio, for respondent.

[Argument of Counsel from pages 67-68 intentionally omitted]Mr. Justice HOLMES delivered the opinion of the Court.

This is a suit brought by the widow and administratrix of Nathan Goodman against the petitioner for causing his death by running him down at a grade crossing.The defence is that Goodman's own negligence caused the death.At the trial the defendant asked the Court to direct a verdict for it, but the request and others looking to the same direction were refused, and the plaintiff got a verdict and a judgment which was affirmed by the Circuit Court of Appeals.10 F.(2d) 58.

Goodman was driving an automobile truck in an easterly direction and was killed by a train running southwesterly across the road at a rate of not less than 60 miles an hour.The line was straight but it is said by the respondent that Goodman 'had no practical view' beyond a section house 243 feet north of the crossing until he was about 20 feet from the first rail, or, as the respondent argues, 12 feet from danger, and that then the engine was stiil obscured by the section house.He had been driving at the rate of 10 or 12 miles an hour but had cut down his rate to 5 or 6 miles at about 40 feet from the crossing.It is thought that there was an emergency in which, so far as appears, Goodman did all that he could.

We do not go into further details as to Goodman's precise situation, beyond mentioning that it was daylight and that he was familiar with the crossing, for it appears to us plain that nothing is suggested by the evidence to relieve Goodman from responsibility for his own death.When a...