Gordy v. New York, P. & N.R. Co.
| Decision Date | 04 February 1892 |
| Citation | 23 A. 607,75 Md. 297 |
| Parties | GORDY v. NEW YORK, P. & N. R. CO. |
| Court | Maryland Court of Appeals |
Appeal from circuit court, Wicomico county.
Action by John C. Gordy against the New York, Philadelphia & Norfolk Railroad Company for personal injuries received while acting as rear brakeman. Judgment for defendant, and plaintiff appeals. Affirmed.
Argued before ALVEY, C.J., and MILLER, ROBINSON, BRYAN, MCSHERRY IRVING, and BRISCOE, JJ.
R P. Graham and H. L. D. Standford, for appellant.
John W. Crisfield, for appellee.
This action was brought to recover for an injury suffered by the plaintiff while acting as rear brakeman on a freight train of cars of the defendant, and which injury was caused, as alleged, by the negligence of the defendant. It was shown in proof that the plaintiff was in the service of the defendant in 1886, as rear brakeman or flagman, and that on the night that the accident occurred the train on which the plaintiff was employed was moving from Delman, and was approaching Salisbury; that he was in the rear car, with the conductor in the act of cleaning one of his lamps, when the whistle sounded, and the conductor told him he had better go to his brakes, one of which was on the top of the car, and the other was on the platform at the end of the car, and neither of these brakes could be reached except by going from the inside to the top of the car, and then to the one on the platform that in ascending the side of the car, where ladder-strips were placed to get on top of the car, he was struck by the projecting roof of a freight-shed erected on the platform of the road of the defendant, between the track on which the train was running and the track of the Washington & Potomac Railroad; that he was seriously injured, and disabled to work for several weeks. The plaintiff also proved that the car on which he was at the time he was directed to go to the brakes was the rear car of the train, and that it had no door at the end, and there was no way to get on top of the car except by leaving the inside by way of the side door, and from thence getting on top of the car, as he did, by the ladder-strips; that he had complained to the train-master of this state of things, and that the latter had promised that a different kind of car or caboose car should soon be furnished. The plaintiff, in his testimony, referred to the rules of the defendant, furnished to the plaintiff and other employes, for their government in the performance of their duties; and identified the book of rules produced as that with which he had been furnished, and which rules were in force at the time the accident occurred. Among the rules prescribed for the government of freight conductors is No. 227, which declares: "They must station the brakemen at their respective posts on their trains, and see that t...
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