Chicago, R. I. & P. Ry. Co. v. White

• Decision Date: 30 March 1914
• Parties: CHICAGO, R. I. & P. RY. CO. v. WHITE.
• Court: Arkansas Supreme Court

165 S.W. 627

CHICAGO, R. I. & P. RY. CO. v. WHITE.

Supreme Court of Arkansas.

March 30, 1914.

Appeal from Circuit Court, Dallas County; H. W. Wells, Judge.

Action by Tom White, administrator, against the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific Railway Company. From a judgment for plaintiff, defendant appeals. Affirmed.

Thos. S. Buzbee and Geo. B. Pugh, both of Little Rock, for appellant. Wynne & Harrison, of Fordyce, for appellee.

McCULLOCH, C. J.

Appellee's intestate was a negro boy eight years of age, and was killed in the operation of one of appellant's trains. This is an action to recover damages for the benefit of the estate on account of the pain and suffering alleged to have been endured by deceased after he was struck by the train. The jury awarded damages in the sum of $1,000, and this appeal is prosecuted solely for the purpose of testing the question of the legal sufficiency of the evidence tending to establish conscious suffering as an element of damage. Only the testimony relating to that issue is abstracted. No testimony is abstracted which shows how the injury occurred, except that the body of the child was found under the car. One of the witnesses whose testimony is abstracted says that he saw the child go down an embankment, and in a little while heard screams, from the top of the embankment, and when he ran down to the place, he found the child lying in the middle of the track in the situation indicated, and that the body was dragged three or four feet, and that the child "worked himself this way [indicating]," and was not quite dead. The undertaker who took charge of the remains, and a physician, testified concerning the injury, neither of whom saw the child before death resulted. The physician described the wound as follows: "I found a bruised strip on his body, from the nipple to the edge of the ribs, on the left side, and then the skin was torn entirely through into the intestines and it was torn 3½ or 4 inches, and the intestines were protruding. The ribs and bruised points were where something had passed over the body. You could lay your finger in the place." He testified, further, that the skin was bruised or broken across the chest; that there was no discernible injury to the spinal column, and that the skull was not crushed. The physician gave his opinion, from the condition of the body as he saw it, that there was conscious pain for a period of from 2 to 10 minutes, and that it was very excruciating pain, more severe than...