Brown v. The Union Pacific Railroad Company

• Decision Date: 12 February 1910
• Docket Number: 16,313
• Parties: ELARANDA A. J. BROWN et al., Appellants, v. THE UNION PACIFIC RAILROAD COMPANY, Appellee
• Court: Kansas Supreme Court

106 P. 1001

81 Kan. 701

ELARANDA A. J. BROWN et al., Appellants, v. THE UNION PACIFIC RAILROAD COMPANY, Appellee

No. 16,313

Supreme Court of Kansas

February 12, 1910

Decided January, 1910.

Appeal from Dickinson district court; OSCAR L. MOORE, judge.

Judgment affirmed.

SYLLABUS

SYLLABUS BY THE COURT.

RAILROADS--Injury to Passenger--Proof of Negligence. To sustain an action for damages occasioned by the alleged negligence of another it is necessary for the claimant not only to show that the injury occurred, but to produce sufficient evidence to show prima facie that such injury occurred through the fault of the other. It is not sufficient to show circumstances which would indicate that the other party might have been guilty of negligence, especially when the evidence furnished suggests with equal force that the injury might have resulted without fault on the part of the other party.

E. C Little, for the appellants.

R. W. Blair, H. A. Scandrett, and B. W. Scandrett, for the appellee.

OPINION

SMITH, J.:

This action was brought by the appellants, as next of kin, to recover from the appellee damages for the alleged killing of John Brown, who was the husband of Elaranda A. J. Brown and father of the other appellant. The petition of the appellants sufficiently alleged negligence as the proximate cause of the death. The appellee answered by a general denial and an allegation of contributory negligence. At the trial a jury was impaneled and the appellants introduced their evidence. The appellee demurred to the evidence as insufficient to sustain a cause of action, and this demurrer was sustained and judgment rendered against the appellants for costs.

Some other questions are argued, but the only real question in the case is the sufficiency of the evidence, construed in the light most favorable to the appellants, to sustain a cause of action. The evidence introduced shows prima facie that the deceased was a passenger on the appellee's railroad from Kansas City, Mo., to Abilene, Kan. Nothing unusual in his demeanor is shown. The train arrived at Abilene and stopped at that station about eleven o'clock at night, and a few minutes after it had passed on to the westward the deceased was found two or three hundred feet east of the depot, lying close to the north rail of the main track, the dissevered legs between the rails, and many bruises and wounds on other parts of the body. The surface of the cinders and the blood on the rails indicated that the body had been dragged twenty-five or thirty feet to the position where it was found. Death occurred early the following morning.

So far as is shown, no one saw the deceased leave the coach in which he was riding, no one saw him fall, and nothing is shown in regard to the occurrence except as before stated. The train was a vestibule train, consisting of two or three day coaches, one of which was used as a smoker, in which so far as shown the deceased rode. There were also two or three sleeping cars.

It is alleged in the petition that the employees of the appellee negligently opened the vestibule to one of the coaches before the train arrived at the depot, and by inference at least invited the passengers to assemble in the vestibule, so that they might alight as quickly as possible upon the stopping of the train; that the train was running unreasonably fast just before reaching the depot, and, as the deceased was waiting in the vestibule preparatory to alighting, the train was stopped with unnecessary and unusual suddenness, and thus jerked and threw the deceased out of the vestibule and under the wheels of the car.

As before said, there is no evidence to support these allegations. We have the question squarely presented whether negligence on the part of a railroad company is to be inferred from the bare fact that a passenger was riding upon a vestibule passenger train which arrived at the station of his destination, and immediately after it had departed therefrom he was found mangled beside the rail in such manner that it is evident that his injuries were...