Fuller v. Lake Shore & M.S. Ry. Co.

• Decision Date: 24 March 1896
• Citation: 66 N.W. 593,108 Mich. 690
• Parties: FULLER v. LAKE SHORE & M. S. RY. CO.
• Court: Michigan Supreme Court

66 N.W. 593

108 Mich. 690

FULLER v. LAKE SHORE & M. S. RY. CO.

Supreme Court of Michigan

March 24, 1896

Error to circuit court, Lenawee county; Victor H. Lane, Judge.

Action by Lura Fuller, administratrix of the estate of Albert Fuller, against the Lake Shore & Michigan Southern Railway Company. Judgment for defendant, and plaintiff appeals. Affirmed.

Watts Bean & Smith, for appellant.

C. E Weaver (Geo. C. Greene and O. G. Getzen-Danner, of counsel) for appellee.

HOOKER J.

The plaintiff's intestate was injured, and died, by reason of stepping into a cattle guard while engaged in an attempt to uncouple cars in a train upon which he was brakeman. This action was brought to recover damages, upon the ground that the defendant negligently maintained "a dangerous pitfall, i. e. a culvert 22 inches deep, partly covered with timber, but leaving openings 6 inches wide between said timber upon its track." The circuit judge directed a verdict for the defendant and the plaintiff appealed.

Counsel for the plaintiff concedes that, if the law required the defendant to maintain the pit at that place, the plaintiff should not recover. The pit was a cattle guard. The law requires the railroad company to maintain fences between its right of way and adjoining lands excepting, only, station grounds. It also requires the maintenance of cattle guards at highway crossings. This cattle guard was not placed at a highway crossing, but was 400 or 500 feet south of Hamilton street, at a point where the ordinary right of way joined the railroad station grounds, which were much wider than the space used for the main track further south. Without such cattle guard there would have been nothing to prevent cattle from straying from the streets upon the station grounds, and thence south upon the track. The defendant was obliged to fence its right of way from the point where this cattle guard was built. To have left it without a cattle guard would have left a narrow pocket, 500 or 600 feet long into which animals might freely enter, and from which they could not escape at any other point. The obvious intent of the legislature, in providing for fences and cattle guards, is to exclude animals from entering upon the track. The fence keeps them from entering from adjoining premises; the cattle guards, from entering from the highways. But station grounds are exempt, for the general convenience of the company and the public. And, as cattle guards would be useless at streets crossing station grounds, it is the uniform custom, as all know, to locate them upon the...