Chicago, St. P., M. & O. Ry. Co. v. Belliwith

• Decision Date: 15 November 1897
• Docket Number: 869.
• Citation: 83 F. 437
• Parties: CHICAGO, ST. P., M. & O. RY. CO. v. BELLIWITH.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit

83 F. 437

CHICAGO, ST. P., M. & O. RY. CO. v. BELLIWITH.

No. 869.

United States Court of Appeals, Eighth Circuit.

November 15, 1897

On September 15, 1894, a freight train was wrecked on the track of the Chicago, St. Paul, Minneapolis & Omaha Railway Company, the plaintiff in error, on its road between Minneapolis and Menomonie, in the state of Wisconsin. A tank in the wreck, which contained oil, took fire about 7 o'clock in the morning of that day, and, after burning about four hours, exploded and burned John Belliwith, the defendant in error. he was a passenger on a train which started that morning from Minneapolis, and arrived at the scene of the wreck in the forenoon of that day, before the explosion. The company stopped this train at a safe distance from the burning tank, made a gap in the fence on the south side of its right of way, opposite this train, and conducted Belliwith and the other passengers around the burning tank through a field, to a point on the right of way a safe distance east of the tank, where they were led through another gap made in the fence, and left to await the arrival of a passenger train which was coming from the east to take them forward on their journey. After Belliwith had been safely led around the burning tank to this point, he voluntarily started back towards the passenger train which had brought him from Minneapolis, for the purpose, as he testified, of getting a package which he had forgotten and left in the car which he had occupied. The flames from the burning tank were leaping high in the air, and making so much noise that they were the most conspicuous objects in view. Instead of passing around them through the field, in the safe way in which he had been led east by the employes of the railway company, he went materially nearer the right of way of the company and the burning tank as he proceeded westward and, just as he came near the tank, it exploded, and he was burned. He sued the company for negligence. It answered that it was not negligent; that Belliwith brought his injuries upon himself, by leaving the safe place to which he had been conducted by the company, and approaching nearer to the burning tank, without its knowledge or consent; and that on November 30, 1894, he had compromised his claim, and released the company from all liability for the injuries which he sustained from the explosion and burning, in consideration of $300, which the company had paid him on that day. Belliwith filed a reply to this answer, in which he denied that he had been negligent, denied the compromise and release, and alleged that he could not read or write; that on November 30 1894, he demanded of the company a money settlement for his injuries; that the company would not pay him what he demanded, but paid him $200, and told him that it would help him along temporarily, and settle with him later. He also alleged that if the company had any release, claimed to be signed by him, it was a fabrication, and his consent to it was procured by artifice and deceit, and under a mistake with no intention on his part to release any claim against the company, except for the value of the goods which he lost at the time of the accident. The case was tried to a jury, and these facts were established without controversy: Belliwith was a German peddler, who had been in this country 20 years, and had been engaged in his occupation of a peddler for 5 or 6 years. He could not read or write, but he gave more than 50 printed pages of testimony, in English, in this case, without the aid of an interpreter; and it evinces a ready understanding and a proper use by him of the English language. After his injuries he was treated in the hospital in St. Paul. When he had recovered sufficiently to go out on the streets of the city, and on the 21st day of November, 1894, he met an attorney at law, told him the facts regarding his claim against the railway company which is in suit here, employed him to prosecute that claim, and gave him a written power of attorney 'to receipt for, settle, and compromise said cause of action as to him may seem fit, as fully and completely as said second party (Belliwith) might do if he were personally present, hereby ratifying every act by him done in the premises. ' His attorney immediately filed a copy of this power of attorney with the railway company, and commenced negotiations with Mr. Wilson, the general counsel of the company, for a settlement of this claim. Mr Wilson denied all liability on the part of the company, but after several interviews, and on November 29, 1894, he offered the attorney of Belliwith $300 for a compromise of the claim, and a release of the company from all liability on account of it. On the same day the attorney reported this offer to Belliwith, and on the next day they went together to Mr. Wilson's office, where, after some conversation, a written release and discharge of the claim, for the expressed consideration of $300, was prepared by Mr. Perrin, an assistant of Mr. Wilson, was signed with the name of Belliwith, by his attorney, while he touched the pen, and was delivered to the company; and $300 was then paid for it by the corporation to the attorney of Belliwith, who retained $100 for his fees, and gave $200 of it to his client. Belliwith went home, spent his money, and at the end of four months appeared to the company for the first time after the settlement, and presented a demand for more money and more settlement. The foregoing facts are undisputed, but the testimony which follows is contradicted: To avoid the written contract of compromise and release which he had made, Belliwith introduced in evidence, over the objection of the company, the testimony of one Kort, to the effect that Poole, who was the claim agent of the company, but who was not present at, and took no part in, the compromise made on November 30, 1894, said, six months after that settlement was made, that the company had never made a general settlement with Belliwith, but had given him a little money-- a few hundred dollars-- to help him out. For the purpose of avoiding the release, Belliwith himself testified that he lost a package worth $4.11 at the time of the accident; that the company never asked him to make a settlement; that he could not read or write; that he did not ask to have the paper that he touched the pen to read to him, and that it was never read to him; that his attorney told him that it was the settlement for the $4.11; that he supposed that it was; and that he never signed any release of any claim, except for the $4.11. But he also testified that when he say his lawyer received the $300 he knew it was more money than $4.11; that when he got home he found he had received $200; that he did not pay this money back to the company, but that he used it at home; and that it was a present to him from the company. He testified that his lawyer told him on the day before he executed the release that Mr. Wilson offered $300 to help him out, and that he replied that he did not want it, because they told him that to accept it would be to settle his claim; and he testified that, at the interview with Mr. Wilson on the day when the release was signed, Mr. Wilson offered him $300, and refused to pay him any more; that he told Mr. Wilson that he did not want it; and that he knew that, if he took it, its acceptance was a settlement. His attorney, who wrote Belliwith's name to the release while he touched the pen, and the assistant of Mr. Wilson, who drew the release, testified that after it was drawn, and before it was signed, it was handed to his attorney, who read it aloud in the presence of Belliwith. The court below refused to instruct the jury, at the request of the plaintiff in error, to return a verdict in its favor upon this evidence, refused to give other instructions which it requested, and gave instructions to which it excepted. These rulings are assigned as error.

L. K. Luse, for plaintiff in error.

Benjamin Davenport, for defendant in error.

Before BREWER, Circuit Justice, and SANBORN and THAYER, Circuit Judges.

SANBORN Circuit Judge, after stating the case as above.

A written contract of release cannot be annulled or avoided by proof that one of the parties of it, who was sound in mind and able in body, could not read or write, did not know the terms of the agreement, and neglected to ask any one to read it to him when he signed it. A written contract is the highest evidence of the terms of an agreement between the parties to it, and it is the duty of every contracting party to learn and know its contents before he signs and delivers it. He owes this duty to the other party to the contract because the latter may and probably will, pay his money and shape his action in reliance upon the agreement. He owes it to the public, which, as a matter of public policy, treats the written contract as a conclusive answer to the question, what was the agreement? If one can read his contract, his failure to do so is such gross negligence that it will estop him from denying it, unless he has been dissuaded from reading it by some trick or artifice practiced by the opposite party. If he cannot read it, it is as much his duty to procure some reliable person to read and explain it to him, before he signs it, as it would be to read it before h...