Custer v. Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Co.
| Decision Date | 09 July 1903 |
| Docket Number | 119 |
| Citation | 206 Pa. 529,55 A. 1130 |
| Parties | Custer, Appellant, v. Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Company |
| Court | Pennsylvania Supreme Court |
Argued February 9, 1903
Appeal, No. 119, Jan. T., 1902, by plaintiff, from judgment of Superior Court, Oct. T., 1901, No. 40, affirming order of C.P. Del. Co., March T., 1899, No. 193, in case of Isaac R Custer v. Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Company. Affirmed.
Appeal from Superior Court.
The facts are stated in the opinion of the Supreme Court and in 19 Pa.Super. 365.
Error assigned was the judgment of the Superior Court.
The assignments of error are overruled, and the judgment is affirmed.
Oliver B. Dickinson, for appellant.
William B. Broomall, for appellee.
Before MITCHELL, DEAN, BROWN, MESTREZAT and POTTER, JJ.
The trial court entered judgment of compulsory nonsuit in this case, and refused upon motion, to take it off. The Superior Court affirmed the judgment of the trial court, and its action in so doing, is here assigned as error.
The appellant contends that he was entitled to have the jury pronounce upon the effect of the facts, which were undisputed, and that it, rather than the court should have determined whether the defendant was negligent. But as the conduct of the parties is not in dispute, and as all the facts appear clearly and distinctly in the evidence, and there is no conflict in the testimony, the only question for decision was as to the legal effect, or value of the facts.
Whenever the facts are ascertained, the rule of conduct, or in other words, the rule of law to be applied is to be determined and laid down by the court, and is not to be left to be defined by the accidental feelings of a jury. It would be an easy way for the court to avoid responsibility when the circumstances are complex, or the question is difficult, to throw the whole case in a lump to the jury. But to do this, when as in the present instance, no doubt exists as to the actual conduct of the parties, and where none of the facts are in dispute, would be an evasion of duty and the surrender of a judicial function.
The law tends constantly towards the attainment of greater certainty of definition, and to the substitution of specific rules of conduct, instead of featureless generalities. It is always desirable that the standard by which parties are judged, should be one of specific acts or omissions, with reference to the special circumstances of the case. It has been well said in Holmes Lectures on the common law that "if in the whole department of unintentional wrongs, the courts arrived at no further utterance than the question of negligence, and left every case without rudder or compass to the jury, they would simply confess their inability to state a very large part of the law which they require the defendant to know, and would assert by implication, that nothing could be learned by experience."
Hence the long and growing line of decisions, in which, instead of relying upon the vague and uncertain estimate of a jury, as to the degree of care which would be exercised under the circumstances by a prudent man, there has been substituted the more precise and definite rule of certain specific acts, whose existence or omission constitute negligence.
The definition of negligence and the determination of a standard of duty is always a matter of law for the court. In case of a dispute it is of course for the jury to say whether or not the facts come within the standard. But where the facts are clear and nothing remains but the definition and application to them of the rule of conduct, the responsibility is upon the court alone.
In the present case this responsibility was properly assumed and carefully discharged by the trial court. The conclusion reached by it is so well vindicated, and the case is so fully discussed in the opinion of the Superior Court in affirmance of the court below that little remains to be said.
The accident occurred at a grade crossing in a populous district. The defendant company had provided safety gates and a watchman to protect travelers upon the highway. The train which caused the damage was running at a high rate of speed, probably sixty miles an hour, and the engineer was unable to stop in time to avoid the collision. The plaintiff's horses were smooth shod, and in approaching the crossing, the team was stalled so that instead of passing at once and directly across the tracks, it remained upon the line of the railroad for about four minutes until the train came.
The...
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