Chicago, R. I. & T. Ry. Co. v. Oldridge

• Decision Date: 07 November 1903
• Citation: 76 S.W. 581
• Parties: CHICAGO, R. I. & T. RY. CO. v. OLDRIDGE.
• Court: Texas Court of Appeals

76 S.W. 581

CHICAGO, R. I. & T. RY. CO. v. OLDRIDGE.

Court of Civil Appeals of Texas.

November 7, 1903.

Appeal from District Court, Tarrant County; M. E. Smith, Judge.

Action by J. B. Oldridge against the Chicago, Rock Island & Texas Railway Company. Judgment for plaintiff, and defendant appeals. Reversed.

N. H. Lassiter and Robert Harrison, for appellant. W. P. McLean and McLean & Scott, for appellee.

STEPHENS, J.

Appellee was severely injured in appellant's switchyards at Ft. Worth about June 30, 1902, a little after 10 o'clock at night, on account of which he recovered a verdict and judgment for $14,000, from which this appeal is prosecuted. He was a freight brakeman for appellant, and had been for nearly a year, when he was injured, running between Ft. Worth and Chickasha. Having been called that night to go out on his run, he went down to the yards about 30 minutes before his train was due to leave, carrying a lantern, and also a valise containing his clothes and lunch. His train was then being made up, and the caboose to be attached to it was still on a switch track, and was, as he knew, being handled by the switch crew (to which he did not belong) engaged in making up the train. He at once stepped upon the rear platform of the caboose, unlocked the door, and entered; leaving the lantern on the platform, and placing the valise on the inside. He then undertook to light the lamp in the caboose, when a sudden jerk threw him head first through the door he had just opened, and over the platform to the ground, where he was run over by the caboose, which severed his right arm and shoulder. The switchmen had undertaken, by reversing the engine and uncoupling the caboose from the rest of the string of cars they were handling, to kick the caboose down the track; but it failed to uncouple, and this caused the jerk which threw appellee out. Appellee was aware of what they were attempting to do. Whether this failure to uncouple was due to a defect in the coupling, or to the negligence of the brakemen in failing to promptly and sufficiently pull up the coupling pin, or to unavoidable accident, was controverted, and not conclusively shown by the evidence. The separation of the caboose from the rest of the train, which immediately followed the jerk, was due either to the rebound inevitable in such cases, or to a tardy but finally successful effort on the part of the brakeman to pull up the pin. The testimony of the brakeman was to the effect that he pulled up the pin promptly and sufficiently, and that automatic couplers would frequently, or at least occasionally, fail to uncouple in the first instance. Appellee admitted that they would sometimes fail, and had done so on his train. The testimony also tended to show that he must have been familiar both with the kind and condition of the couplers on this caboose, as well as with the kind used by appellant generally. The jerk produced by the failure of the cars to uncouple might not and probably would not have thrown appellee overboard if the guard chain at the rear end of the caboose had not been unfastened at one end. The evidence tended to show that it was the duty of appellant's car inspector to see that the guard chains were in proper condition—that is, hooked up —before cabooses were turned over to those making up the trains. Appellee denied seeing that the chain on the caboose from which he was thrown was down when he boarded it, but admitted he could have done so if he had looked. His evidence also tended to show that it was customary and in the line of duty for a freight brakeman, when called to go out on his run, to go, with his lantern and valise, direct to the caboose to be attached to his train, while it is yet in the yards, and before the train is made up, and there wait for the conductor, though it seems clear that such brakeman has no duty to perform connected with the making up of such train, and that, aside from acts of preparation, his work does not really begin till the train is fully made up.

The grounds of liability submitted in the charge were these: Whether there was negligence, first, in suddenly reversing the engine with great or unnecessary violence; second, in failing to have the guard chain fastened across the rear end of the caboose; third, in failing to have the caboose equipped with reasonably safe coupling appliances; fourth, in the manner in which these appliances were handled in...