Calhoun v. Pennsylvania R. Company
| Decision Date | 04 January 1909 |
| Docket Number | 129 |
| Parties | Calhoun v. Pennsylvania Railroad Company, Appellant |
| Court | Pennsylvania Supreme Court |
Argued October 30, 1908
Appeal, No. 129, Oct. T., 1908, by defendant, from judgment of C.P. No. 3, Allegheny Co., Feb. T., 1906, No. 527, on verdict for plaintiff in case of Johnston R. Calhoun v. The Pennsylvania Railroad Company. Affirmed.
Trespass to recover damages for personal injuries. Before PATTON, J.
The facts are stated in the opinion of the Supreme Court.
Verdict and judgment for plaintiff for $5,000. Defendant appealed.
Error assigned was in refusing binding instructions for defendant.
The judgment is affirmed.
James S. Crawford, with him Patterson, Sterrett & Acheson, for appellant.
Rody P Marshall, with him Thomas M. Marshall for appellee.
Before FELL, BROWN, MESTREZAT, POTTER, ELKIN and STEWART, JJ.
The plaintiff was injured at a grade crossing of the defendant's road in East Braddock, where there were five tracks, on four of which rapidly moving trains ran frequently. He was riding on a long lumber wagon and was seated twenty feet back of his horses' heads near the hind axle, a position from which he could reach the brake. He stopped when his horses were twenty feet from the tracks and he was about forty feet from them, and waited until a train had passed west 300 feet. This was the usual place where drivers stopped, but from it he could see only about 300 feet either way. Within twenty feet of the tracks there was an unobstructed view for 1,400 feet. After the train had passed the plaintiff looked and listened and he continued to look and listen as he drove on the crossing. When his horses were on the second track and the front of his wagon on the first, he saw a train coming east around a curve 1,500 feet away. He hastened to get across, but one of the hind wheels of his wagon was struck when on the last rail of the fourth track by a train which, according to the testimony of his witness, was running fifty-five miles an hour, of the approach of which no warning had been given.
It is argued that the plaintiff was negligent in not getting off his wagon and going forward to a place where he could obtain an unobstructed view, and in knowingly attempting to cross in front of a rapidly moving train. There has been no departure from the rule that, if a driver cannot see by looking from the vehicle in which he is riding, he should get out and go forward to a place where he can see; and there should be no departure from it: Kinter v. Railroad Co., 204 Pa....
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