Belt R.R. & Stock-Yard Co. v. Mann

• Decision Date: 17 June 1886
• Court: Indiana Supreme Court
• Parties: Belt Railroad & Stock-Yard Co. v. Mann.

107 Ind. 89

7 N.E. 893

Belt Railroad & Stock-Yard Co.

v.Mann.

Supreme Court of Indiana.

June 17, 1886.

Appeal from Marion superior court.

A. C. Harris, E. H. Lamrese, and W. H. Calkins, for appellant.

Baker, Winter & Herod, for appellee.

Mitchell, J.

James E. Mann recovered a judgment against the appellant in the court below for damages sustained on the twenty-fifth day of June, 1882, by coming in collision with one of appellant's locomotive engines at a point where a highway crosses the Belt Railroad near the city of Indianapolis.

The complaint is in three paragraphs. In the first and third it is charged that the plaintiff's injury was occasioned by the negligence of the railroad company; the plaintiff being without fault or negligence on his part. The second paragraph does not aver, either directly or indirectly, that the plaintiff was without fault, but proceeds upon the theory that the injury was willfully and purposely committed, and that the plaintiff was entitled to maintain an action against the railroad company, notwithstanding he may have been subject to the imputation of contributory fault.

With their general verdict the jury returned answers to a number of special interrogatories submitted by each of the parties. These indicate that the verdict and judgment rest on the complaint generally. Indeed, it might well be inferred, in view of the facts specially found, that the general verdict and judgment find their support in that paragraph of the complaint which authorized a recovery without regard to the fact that the plaintiff may not have exercised due care.

Upon the assumption that the second paragraph, to which a demurrer had been overruled, charged the infliction of a willful injury, the court, after giving the jury instructions pertinent to the other paragraphs, charged them in substance that, if the plaintiff's injuries were the result of willful acts on the part of the defendant's employes, then they might find for him, without reference to whether he had, by his negligent conduct, contributed to the injury. The jury were further told, in that connection, that if the defendant's misconduct was such as to evince an utter disregard for consequences, and to imply a willingness to inflict the injury suffered by the plaintiff, then they were authorized to find that the injury was willfully inflicted. It will thus be seen that the correctness of one of the theories upon which the case was distinctly put to the jury depends upon whether the complaint presented the issue of an injury willfully or purposely inflicted. If there was no such issue legitimately presented, it was manifestly erroneous, and necessarily hurtful to the appellant, to permit the jury to determine its liability for an injury resulting from alleged negligence, upon the theory that the plaintiff was entitled to a verdict notwithstanding the injury may have occurred through his contributory fault.

Where a verdict is based upon an entire complaint, which contains two or more paragraphs, if either paragraph is bad, the judgment will be reversed. Pennsylvania Co. v. Holderman, 69 Ind. 18;Lang v. Oppenheim, 96 Ind. 47;Caylor v. Roe, 99 Ind. 1;Railroad Co. v. Lockridge, 93 Ind. 191;Ethel v. Batchelder, 90 Ind. 520. In such a case, the ruling must stand or fall upon its own merits. The evidence, or the result reached, cannot be considered in determining whether the complaint was sufficient. Pennsylvania Co. v. Marion, 104 Ind. 239; S. C. 3 N. E. Rep. 874; Pennsylvania Co. v. Poor, 103 Ind. 653; S. C. 3 N. E. Rep. 253. We are therefore to determine whether or not the second paragraph of the complaint charges the injury to have been willfully inflicted; and, since the paragraph assumes to state the specific acts which occasioned the injury, the quality of those acts must be determined, not by considering the vituperative epithets with which the complaint abounds, but by a consideration of the acts which are charged as having caused the injury.

That part of the complaint which is material in this connection is as follows:

“That on the twenty-fifth day of June, 1882, while said plaintiff was traveling along a public thoroughfare running south from the city of Indianapolis, which crosses defendant's road just south of said city, and while plaintiff was crossing said road, he being seated in a two-wheeled vehicle drawn by one horse, said defendant, by its servants and employes, ran a locomotive belonging to said defendant * * * over and along said road at a great rate of speed, and said defendant so negligently and carelessly operated said locomotive,” etc., “as to cause the same to run into and against plaintiff's vehicle; thereby hurling said vehicle and horse to one side of the road, and running against, upon, and over this plaintiff, crushing and mutilating his right arm,” etc. “That said accident occurred, and said injuries were inflicted, by said defendant, its servants and employes, through their gross and willful negligence, and through their wantonness and recklessness in the management of said locomotive and train. Plaintiff avers that by reason thereof he was cruelly, wantonly, and willfully permanently maimed and injured by said defendant's...