Chicago Ry Co v. Ward
Decision Date | 01 March 1920 |
Docket Number | No. 198,198 |
Citation | 252 U.S. 18,64 L.Ed. 430,40 S.Ct. 275 |
Parties | CHICAGO, R. I. & P. RY. CO. et al. v. WARD |
Court | U.S. Supreme Court |
Messrs. R. J. Roberts, of El Reno, Okl., W. H. Moore, of McAlester, Okl., Thomas P. Littlepage and Sidney F. Taliaferro, both of Washington, D. C., and W. F. Dickinson, of Chicago, Ill., for petitioners.
Mr. W. S. Pendleton, of Shawnee, Okl., for respondent.
Suit was brought in the superior court, Pottawatomie county, Oklahoma, against the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific Railway Company and A. J. Carney to recover damages for injuries alleged to have been received by Ward while he was employed as a switchman of the railway company in its yards at Shawnee. He recovered a judgment which was affirmed by the Supreme Court of Oklahoma, 173 Pac. 212. The ground upon which recovery was sought against the railway company and Carney, who was an engine foreman, was that Ward, while engaged in his duty as a switchman, was suddenly thrown from the top of a box car upon which he was about to apply a brake. The petition alleged, and the testimony tended to show, that Ward was engaged as a switch man on a cut of cars which it was the duty of the engine foreman to cut loose from the engine pushing the cars in order that Ward might gradually stop the cars by applying the brake. It appears that at the time of the injury to Ward, the cut of cars had been pushed up an incline by the engine, over an elevation, and as the cars ran down the track the effect was to cause the slack to run out between them permitting them to pull apart sufficiently to be uncoupe d, at which time it was the duty of the engine foreman to uncouple the cars. The testimony tended to support the allegations of the petition as to the negligent manner in which this operation was performed at the time of the injury, showing the failure of the engine foreman to properly cut off the cars at the time he directed the engineer to retard the speed of the engine, thereby causing them to slow down in such manner that when the check reached the car upon which Ward was about to set the brake, he was suddenly thrown from the top of the car with the resulting injuries for which he brought this action.
The railway company and Carney took issue upon the allegations of the petition, and set up contributory negligence and assumption of risk as defenses. The trial court left the question of negligence on the part of the company and the engine foreman to the jury, and also instructed it as to assumption of risk by an employe of the ordinary hazards of the work in which he was engaged, and further charged the jury as follows:
Treating the case, as the court below did, as one...
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