Gillan v. Chicago, N. S. & M. R. Co.

• Decision Date: 08 March 1954
• Docket Number: Gen. No. 46168
• Citation: 1 Ill.App.2d 466,117 N.E.2d 833
• Parties: GILLAN v. CHICAGO, N. S. & M. RY. CO.
• Court: United States Appellate Court of Illinois

Page 833

117 N.E.2d 833

1 Ill.App.2d 466

GILLAN v. CHICAGO, N. S. & M. RY. CO.

Gen. No. 46168.

Appellate Court of Illinois, First District, First Division.

March 8, 1954.

James J. Magner, Chicago, Francis X. Busch, E. Marvin Buehler and E. N. Muldoon, Chicago, of counsel, for appellant.

Philip H. Corboy, Chicago, for appellee.

NIEMEYER, Presiding Justice.

Defendant appeals from a judgment for $50,000 entered in plaintiff's action for personal injuries resulting from a collision between the automobile in which he was riding as a guest and an electric train of defendant at the intersection of Washington avenue and defendant's tracks in Highwood, Illinois, a few minutes before 6 a. m., February 7, 1952. The sole contention on appeal is that the trial court should have directed a verdict for defendant or sustained its motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict because there was no evidence that plaintiff was in the exercise of due care for his own safety and the evidence affirmatively showed that he was guilty of contributory negligence.

Plaintiff, a soldier stationed at Fort Sheridan, and three other soldiers--Russell, Benavides and Allen--from the same fort, were returning after spending the night at the Bella Vista, a bar and restaurant in Highwood, and the Skokie Gardens, a tavern at the intersection of United States Highway 41 and the Cook-Lake County Road, about 5 or 6 miles to the south and west of the Bella Vista. They had gone to the Gardens from the Bella Vista in a Chevrolet automobile owned and driven by Russell. In the party was a girl friend of Allen. They left the Gardens about 4:30 or 4:45 a. m. Benavides was driving at the request of Russell, who sat on the front seat between the driver and plaintiff. Allen and the girl were in the back seat. There is no evidence that any in the party were intoxicated. Russell and plaintiff fell asleep almost immediately and remained asleep until the collision in which plaintiff was injured. After taking the girl to her home in Highwood, Benavides drove to Washington avenue and turned east toward Fort Sheridan, beyond the railroad tracks.

Washington avenue runs east and west and crosses the tracks of the Chicago & North Western Railway and the defendant. These tracks run slightly diagonally, northwest and southeast. From west to east there are three North Western tracks, an open space of about 69 feet, and three tracks of defendant. The crossing is protected by three sets of manually operated gates which extend across the street when down--one west of the North Western tracks, one immediately east of these tracks, and the third east of defendant's tracks. The two westerly tracks of defendant are main line tracks for south and northbound trains. The most easterly track is a side track. Between the main tracks and the side track and immediately north of the north curb of Washington avenue is the watchman's tower. From the North Western tracks east there is nothing to obstruct the view of defendant's tracks north and south for a considerable distance.

Benavides and Allen were witnesses for plaintiff. The former testified that when the automobile reached Green Bay Road, the first north and south street west of the tracks, the three sets of gates were down, a bell was ringing and the red lights on the gates were flashing; he stopped; a train which he believed was on the North Western tracks passed to the south, the gates went up, he started to cross the tracks at about 10 to 15 miles an hour, when about 65 feet from defendant's northbound track he glanced to his right but didn't see the northbound electric train which ran into him. Allen corroborates the testimony of Benavides. He said that when they were over the defendant's tracks he glanced to the right and saw the lights of a train coming 'on the same track we were on'; that the east gates started to lower. Neither Benavides nor Allen heard a whistle or bell after starting across the tracks. Defendant's version, as told by its employees, is that the gates were down; a single car passed to the south, meeting the northbound train about two to four hundred feet south of the crossing; the northbound train had an electric headlight 500-watt bulb turned on bright; it was going 30 to 35 miles an hour; when about 800 feet from the crossing the motorman of the train saw that the gates were down and the red lights were on; that an automobile was parked about 10 feet east of the southbound track; that when he passed the southbound car he saw that the automobile had started across the tracks, he applied his brakes and gave a warning whistle; the automobile suddenly stopped, with its right rear wheel on the east rail of the track; he put his brakes into emergency; the train struck the automobile.

Defendant's motions for a directed verdict and for judgment notwithstanding the verdict present a question of law as to whether, when all the evidence is considered, together with all reasonable inferences from it in its aspect most favorable to plaintiff, there is a total failure or lack of evidence to prove any necessary element of plaintiff's case. Heideman v. Kelsey, 414 Ill. 453, 457, 111 N.E.2d 538. Where, as here, there is no wilful or wanton injury, the plaintiff cannot recover 'unless it appears he was in the exercise of ordinary care for his safety, and, in such case, it is the duty of the court to direct a verdict for the defendant, if there is no evidence tending to show affirmatively that the plaintiff was exercising due care, or to raise a reasonable inference of such care.' Illinois Central R. R. Co., v. Oswald, 338 Ill. 270, 170 N.E. 247, 249.

The law fixes the same standard of duty for a passenger as for a driver of an automobile--the exercise of reasonable care for his own safety, but the conduct which reasonable care requires of a passenger will not ordinarily, if in any case, be the same as that required of a driver because their circumstances are different. Clarke v. Connecticut Co., 83 Conn. 219, 76 A. 523. In Dee v. City of Peru, 343 Ill. 36, 174 N.E. 901, 904, the passenger's duty was defined as follows 'It is the duty of a passenger in a vehicle, where he has an opportunity to learn of danger and to avoid it, to warn the driver of such vehicle of approaching danger, and he has no right, because some one else is driving, to omit reasonable and prudent efforts on his own part to avoid danger.'

This rule has never been construed to require action by a passenger when the driver exercising due care is aware of approaching vehicles or other danger. Hagen v. Bailus, 283 Ill.App. 249, in which this court quoted with approval from Hermann v. Rhode Island Co., 36 R.I. 447, 90 A. 813, 814, as follows:

'It cannot be said, as a matter of law, that such guest or passenger is guilty of negligence because he has done nothing. In many such cases the highest degree of caution may consist of inaction. In situations of great and sudden peril meddlesome interference with those having control, either by physical act or by disturbing suggestion and needless warnings may be exceedingly disastrous in its result.'

Except in rare instances, as when danger hidden from the driver is or should be obvious to a passenger, the duty of the latter to act begins only when the driver ceases to exercise due care for the safety of the occupants of the automobile. And when there is an equal opportunity to discover impending danger, the action, if any, required of a passenger is in inverse ratio to the care exercised by the driver. If the driver is guilty of negligence as a matter of law, a passenger who does nothing is guilty as a matter of law of failing to exercise due care. Dee v. City of Peru, supra; Elliott v. Elgin J. & E. Ry. Co., 325 Ill.App. 161, 59 N.E.2d 486; Henert v. Chicago & N. W. Ry. Co., 332 Ill.App. 194, 74 N.E.2d 725. It is error to instruct the jury that although the driver did not exercise ordinary care for the safety of those in the automobile, yet the plaintiff, a passenger, might have been in the exercise of such care herself, without the slightest evidence that she did anything at all. Opp v. Pryor, 294 Ill. 538, 128 N.E. 580. When the negligence of the driver is a question of fact for the jury, a passenger who does nothing is not guilty as a matter of law of want of ordinary care. Langston v. Chicago & N. W. Ry. Co., 330 Ill.App. 260, 70 N.E.2d 852; Berg v. New York Central R. R. Co., 323 Ill.App. 221, 55 N.E.2d 394; Smith v. Courtney, 281 Ill.App. 530; Rhoden v. Peoria Creamery Co., 278 Ill.App. 452; St. Clair Nat. Bank v. Monaghan, 256 Ill.App. 471. When a driver exercises due care there is a fair inference that the passenger who does nothing is in the exercise of due care. Opp v. Pryor, supra; Smith v. Courtney, supra; St. Clair Nat. Bank v. Monaghan, supra.

When a passenger is not required to act, it is immaterial whether he was asleep or awake before or at the time of the collision. Thompson v. Riemer, 283 Ill.App. 371, was an action brought for the death of a sleeping passenger. Smith v. Courtney, supra, was an action for injuries to the driver, a passenger who was awake and three sleeping passengers. Judgments for the plaintiffs were sustained. In each case there was a head-on collision on an open road, the motor vehicle of the defendant swerving across the dividing line on the pavement into the path of the on-coming automobile, too close to permit the driver of the latter to avoid the impact. The question of the due care of the sleeping passengers was submitted to the jury as a question of fact. It is true, as pointed out by defendant in its reply brief, that in each case the reviewing court held the case before it was distinguishable from the cases where it is the duty of the passenger in a vehicle to be on the lookout for danger at places where it is known that danger is likely to exist. Our Supreme Court has not made that distinction. In Opp v. Pryor, supra, the plaintiff was for...