Campbell v. Spokane & I.E.R. Co.

• Decision Date: 17 April 1911
• Docket Number: 1,471.
• Citation: 188 F. 516
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Washington
• Parties: CAMPBELL v. SPOKANE & I.E.R. CO.

188 F. 516

CAMPBELL v. SPOKANE & I.E.R. CO.

No. 1,471.

United States Circuit Court, E.D. Washington.

April 17, 1911

Belden & Losey, for plaintiff.

Graves Kizer & Graves, for defendant.

RUDKIN District Judge.

The defendant company owns and operates a line of electric railway between the city of Spokane, in the state of Washington, and the city of Coeur d'Alene, in the state of Idaho, and at the time of receiving the injury complained of in this action the plaintiff was a motorman in its employ. While the plaintiff was thus employed, on the 31st day of July, 1909, his train collided with another train operated by the defendant company over the same line, and running in the opposite direction, causing the injuries for which a recovery is here sought. The third and seventh paragraphs of the complaint allege that the drawbars on the front end of the motor car operated by the plaintiff, and the heavy base framework to which the drawbars are attached, were six inches lower than the like appliances on the front end of the motor car with which the plaintiff's car collided, and that the accident would not have happened had the drawbars and heavy framework on the two colliding cars been of the same height.

Independently of statute, an electric railway company is under no obligation to supply drawbars, heavy base framework, or buffers, on the front end of its motors to guard and protect the motormen against injuries resulting from collisions with other cars or trains on the same line or track. Durkee v Hudson Valley Ry. Co., 193 N.Y. 555, 86 N.E. 537; Filbert v. New York, N. H. Business Hr. Co., 95 A.D 199, 88 N.Y.Supp. 438.

Nor does the complaint charge any violation of the safety appliance act of March 2, 1893, c. 196, 27 Stat. 531 (U.S Comp. St. 1901, p. 3174), and the acts amendatory thereof, of which the plaintiff can complain. When a statute is designed to protect a particular class of persons against a particular class of injuries, a violation of the statutory duty constitutes negligence per se, whenever one of the protected class is injured from a cause against which the statute was designed to protect him. 3 The purpose of the safety appliance act was to require all cars, regularly used on any railroad engaged in interstate commerce, and all other cars used in connection therewith, to couple automatically by impact and to be coupled and uncoupled without the necessity of men going between them, whether they are loaded or empty, and although not actually engaged in such commerce at the time. Hohenleitner v. Southern Pac. Co. (C.C.) 177 F. 796. The design of the act was, therefore, to protect employes from injuries received in going between cars to couple or uncouple them, not from injuries received in...