Eddy v. Lafayette

• Decision Date: 15 February 1892
• Citation: 49 F. 798
• Parties: EDDY et al. v. LAFAYETTE et al.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit

49 F. 798

EDDY et al. v. LAFAYETTE et al.

United States Court of Appeals, Eighth Circuit.

February 15, 1892

Clifford L. Jackson, for plaintiffs in error.

W. T Hutchings, for defendants in error.

Before CALDWELL, Circuit Judge, and SHIRAS and THAYER, District judges.

CALDWELL Circuit Judge.

This action was commenced in the United States court for the Indian Territory by the defendants in error, to recover damages for a mule alleged to have been killed through the negligent operation of the locomotive and cars of the Missouri, Kansas & Texas Railway Company by the plaintiffs in error, as receivers of the road. There was a trial in that court before a jury, and a verdict and judgment for the plaintiffs for $160, and the defendant sued out this writ of error. Upon the trial the court below gave the following amount other instructions to the jury:

'Heretofore the ruling of this court has been that the only duty which a railroad company owed to the owner of stock killed upon its track was that the engineer in charge of the train at the time should use ordinary or reasonable care, after the stock should have been discovered by him, to prevent injury to such stock, and, this being shown, relieved the company from all liability. To this I still hold. But I have also held that the onus of proving the want of ordinary care on the part of the railroad company was on the plaintiff; that is, that the burden of establishing negligence was on the plaintiff, and that the fact of the killing was not prima facie evidence of negligence. On the further consideration of the act of congress establishing this court, and duly considering the decisions of the supreme courts of both the United States and of the state of Arkansas, also the modern writers of acknowledged authority, I have determined to change my ruling on the question involved. I shall now hold the law to be that the fact of injury, when proved, shall be prima facie evidence of negligence, but that this presumption may be rebutted by proof of care.'

After citing authorities in support of this view of the law, and offering the defendants an opportunity to rebut the prima facie case of negligence arising, as the court held, from the fact of killing, an offer of which the defendants declined to avail themselves, the court instructed the jury:

'That if the jury shall believe from the evidence that the plaintiff was the owner of the stock mentioned and described in the complaint, and that the same, or any part thereof, was killed by the railroad trains of the defendants, then they should find for the plaintiff, and assess his damages at the fair cash market value of the stock so killed.'

The giving of this instruction is assigned for error. In the absence of a statutory rule to that effect, the law does not presume negligence from the fact alone that the animal was injured or killed by the railroad company. The general, but not quite uniform, doctrine of the authorities, in the absence of a statute, is that the plaintiff must show that the railroad company was negligent, and that the law will not presume, and the jury is not authorized to infer, negligence from the fact of killing alone. Volkman v. Railway Co., (Dak.) 37 N.W. 731; Eaton v. Navigation Co., (Or.) 24 P. 415; 1 Redf.R.R. § 126; Pierce, R.R. 428; 3 Wood, Ry.Law, § 417; 11 Ror.R.R. 1389; 1 Thomp.Ng.p. 512, Sec. 15; 2 Shear. & R.Neg. § 419; Deer. Neg. Sec. 298; Whart. Neg. Sec. 899; Railway Co. v. Wendt, 12 Neb. 76, 10 N.W.Rep.

456; Milburn v. Railway Co., 86 Mo. 104; Railway Co.v.Geiger, 21 Fla. 669; Railway Co. v. Bolson (Kan.)...