Giles v. Michigan Cent. R. Co.

• Decision Date: 03 June 1919
• Docket Number: No. 19744.,19744.
• Citation: 278 Mo. 350,212 S.W. 873
• Parties: GILES v. MICHIGAN CENT. R. CO.
• Court: Missouri Supreme Court

212 S.W. 873

278 Mo. 350

GILES v. MICHIGAN CENT. R. CO.

No. 19744.

Supreme Court of Missouri, Division No. 2.

June 3, 1919.

Appeal from Circuit Court, Buchanan County; Thomas B. Allen, Judge.

Action by Boyd Giles against the Michigan Central Railroad Company. From a judgment for defendant, plaintiff appeals. Affirmed.

Sterling P. Reynolds, of St. Joseph, for appellant. Culver & Phillip, of St. Joseph, for respondent.

WALKER, J.

In a suit for personal injuries, brought by plaintiff against defendant in the circuit court of Buchanan county, a trial resulted in a verdict for defendant, from which plaintiff appeals.

On December 25, 1913, plaintiff was a passenger on one of defendant's solid vestibuled trains, en route from New York City to Chicago. When the train reached the latter city, at about the Twenty-Second Street crossing, the plaintiff, it is conceded, there being no eyewitness to the accident, fell through an open vestibule door and was injured. Soon thereafter he was found lying in an unconscious condition near the track by employs of the defendant. He was taken to a hospital in Chicago, and upon an examination by the attendant physician and the surgeon employed by defendant it was discovered that he had a bruise on the right temporal region of his head. His blood pressure was taken, showing it to be above normal. A subsequent examination a few hours later showed a further increase in blood pressure. He remained unconscious during the night, and, his blood pressure the next morning being greater, it was decided that there was such an injury to the brain as to render an operation necessary. In the meantime he had aroused from his stupor and became wildly delirious. An anaesthetic was administered and an operation performed, in which that portion of the skull underneath the bruise over the right temporal region was trephined and a portion of the bone removed. Other steps were taken in their order necessary to leave the wound in a condition to heal. Coming out from under the influence of the anaesthetic, he again became violent, and it was necessary to administer opiates and place him under physical restraint to prevent his removing the bandages from the wound and inflicting injury on himself. After about a week he regained his normal mental condition, talked rationally, and recognized his friends. The wound healed without infection, and after about two weeks from the date of the injury he left the hospital in seemingly good health.

The conclusions of experts as to the probable effect of the injury were widely variant, as is not infrequent in this character of testimony; at best they were problematical, or of little probative force. The fact appears, however, more potent than speculation based on assumptions of fact, that since the plaintiff's recovery he has been pursuing with satisfaction to his employers his former vocation, that of caretaker in the shipment of live poultry. His principal contention is that he suffers from a loss of memory, and that his left knee is partially paralyzed, as a result of the injury. His own testimony, as preserved in the record, does not give color to this contention.

The petition, after the usual formal and necessary allegations in a pleading of this character, the sufficiency of none of which are questioned, avers, in effect, that while plaintiff was a passenger on defendant's solid vestibuled train, with a knowledge on his part as well as that of the agents and servants of the defendant of the presence, use, and purpose of the vestibules connecting the cars, and that they should remain closed, except to admit of the ingress and egress of passengers at stations, that defendant's agents and servants negligently permitted the entrance to the vestibule of the coach on which plaintiff was riding as a passenger, and that of the adjoining coach, to carelessly and negligently remain open while the train was in motion, without the knowledge of plaintiff, and while he was in the exercise of ordinary care, in going from one coach to another, that said train gave a quick jerk...