Barrett v. Toledo, Peoria & Western Railroad Company

• Citation: 334 F.2d 803
• Decision Date: 30 June 1964
• Docket Number: No. 14373.,14373.
• Parties: Lucian L. BARRETT, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. TOLEDO, PEORIA & WESTERN RAILROAD COMPANY, a corporation, Defendant-Appellant.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit

334 F.2d 803 (1964)

Lucian L. BARRETT, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. TOLEDO, PEORIA & WESTERN RAILROAD COMPANY, a corporation, Defendant-Appellant.

No. 14373.

United States Court of Appeals Seventh Circuit.

June 30, 1964.

John E. Cassidy, Sr., Cassidy & Cassidy, Peoria, Ill., for appellant.

John J. Naughton, Chicago, Ill., Hollis W. Benjamin, Peoria, Ill., Henslee & Henslee, Keith E. Roberts, Chicago, Ill., for plaintiff-appellee.

Before HASTINGS, Chief Judge, and CASTLE and MAJOR, Circuit Judges.

MAJOR, Circuit Judge.

This case was brought under the Federal Employers' Liability Act, 45 U.S.C. § 51 et seq., to recover damages for injuries sustained by the alleged negligence of defendant in failing to use ordinary care to provide plaintiff with a reasonably safe place in which to do his work. The case was tried to a jury, which rendered a verdict favorable to plaintiff. From a judgment entered thereon, defendant appeals.

The District Judge denied defendant's motion for a directed verdict in its favor, made at the close of plaintiff's evidence, and again at the close of all the evidence. The sole contention urged for reversal is that there was no proof of negligence on the part of defendant and that the trial Court committed reversible error in its denial of defendant's motions for a directed verdict.

In our view, no more than a sketchy outline of the evidence as to the circumstances under which plaintiff sustained his injuries is needed to show that the judgment must be affirmed. Plaintiff was employed by defendant as the foreman of a switching crew in defendant's Peoria, Illinois, yard. At about 1 p.m. on March 11, 1960, he was walking on a concrete walkway about four feet wide, running parallel to a repair track on which his engine was operating. At that time the walkway was covered with three to four inches of snow, and plaintiff stepped on an accumulation of ice beneath the snow, fell and received the injuries complained of. For many hours prior and continuing almost to the time of the accident, there had been a severe snow storm which covered defendant's vast switch yard. On the side of the walkway opposite from the switch track and near the point where plaintiff was injured was a building known as a wheel shop, which had gutters with openings for down spouts, none of which had been attached. The walkway sloped down from the wheel shop to the point where plaintiff fell. There was some testimony that the area around the wheel shop tended to accumulate water, ice and snow, and was one of the worst spots in the yard for such accumulation; that complaint had been made by plaintiff to his foreman of this situation, and that defendant had a snow plow and salt in storage, both sometimes used for the removal of snow and ice, but not used on the day of the accident.

Defendant's contention is based in the main upon the fact that there had been a violent wind and snow storm, with the snow constantly accumulating for many hours prior to the accident, and that there was nothing which it could reasonably be expected to do to avoid the situation alleged to have caused plaintiff to slip and fall. Defendant in its brief states, "The precise question evolves — Was it imprudent, unreasonable and negligent on Def.'s part that in this large switching yard and under these inclement weather conditions it did not discover the ice and remove it?"

There is hardly room for doubt under the many decisions of the Supreme Court but that the question posed is for the jury; certainly it cannot be answered in the negative as a matter of law. Defendant argues in effect that an affirmative answer to the question makes the railroad an insurer of the safety of its employees. Twenty years ago the...