Goss v. Northern P. R. Co.

• Decision Date: 23 October 1906
• Citation: 87 P. 149,48 Or. 439
• Parties: GOSS v. NORTHERN PAC. RY. CO.
• Court: Oregon Supreme Court

87 P. 149

48 Or. 439

GOSS v. NORTHERN PAC. RY. CO.

Supreme Court of Oregon

October 23, 1906

Appeal from Circuit Court, Multnomah County; Arthur L. Frazer Judge.

Action by J.T. Goss against the Northern Pacific Railway Company. From a judgment in favor of defendant, plaintiff appeals. Affirmed.

This is an action for negligence. On August 27, 1903, the plaintiff was a passenger on one of the defendant's trains from Kalama to Tacoma. Having occasion during the journey to go to the toilet, he found the room occupied, the door locked, and the door from the car to the platform opened back against the toilet door. He started to step out on the platform to await an opportunity to enter the toilet, and while he was passing out put his hand on the door frame to steady himself, when the door suddenly closed, crushing his finger. At the close of the testimony the court directed a verdict for the defendant, and the plaintiff appeals.

S.C Spencer, for appellant.

O.C Spencer, for respondent.

BEAN C.J. (after stating the facts).

We are of the opinion that the court was right in directing the verdict. The negligence charged is that the catch for the car door was insufficient and out of repair, and that the train was being operated at a high and dangerous rate of speed which caused the door to become disengaged from the catch by the lurching of the train. The proof does not, in our opinion, sustain either of these allegations. The plaintiff, who is a contractor and had frequently traveled on defendant's trains between Kalama and the Sound and was familiar with its cars and road, testified that at the time he tried the toilet door the car door was opened back and fastened to a hook or catch on the floor, which was of the kind ordinarily used in railway coaches; that the train was running quite fast, he thinks about 50 miles an hour, and was passing around a curve at the time of his injury, and that, in his opinion, the raising of one side of the car while going around the curve was the cause of the door becoming unfastened and shutting against his finger; that he made no examination of the catch to ascertain whether it was out of repair, and does not claim that it was, or that the train was running at an unusual rate of speed, but says that it was running on schedule time and over a good roadbed. The conductor, brakeman, car inspectors, and other witnesses for the defendant, who examined the door catch at the time of or immediately after the accident, all testify that it was in good repair, of the latest make and pattern, and such as is ordinarily used on first-class railway coaches. The conductor and engineer both testify that the train was not running at an unusual rate of speed, but was on schedule time, running about 22 miles an hour.

The case, as thus made out by the testimony of the plaintiff and all the other witnesses, was simply the sudden closing of a car door, the fastenings of which were in good repair, on a train moving at the usual rate of speed, and without any proof that it was due to the negligence of the defendant or of any facts from which an inference of negligence could be drawn. The plaintiff claims, however, that proof of the occurrence of the accident and the extent of his injury made a prima facie case in his favor, and cast the burden upon the defendant to show that the accident was without its fault and that whether such presumption was overcome by the proof was a question of fact for the jury, and not the court. Ordinarily the mere fact of an accident does not per se raise a presumption of negligence, but often negligence may be implied from the facts and circumstances disclosed, in the absence of evidence showing that the accident occurred without negligence. Sherman & Redfield, Negligence (4th Ed.)§ 59; 2 Thomas, Neg. (2d Ed.) p. 1093; Jaggard, Torts, 938. Thus, where the evidence shows that the defendant had the exclusive management and control of the thing which caused the injury, or where it appears that the accident occurred through some defect in the vehicle, machinery, roadbed, or appliances, the circumstances, if unexplained, may be sufficient to justify a jury in drawing the inference of negligence, under the rule of res ipsa loquitur. This doctrine has been frequently recognized and the principle applied by the courts in a variety of cases, such as accidents from fallen electric light wires ( Boyd v. Portland Electric Co., 40 Or. 126, 66 P. 576, 57 L.R.A. 619; Id., 41 Or. 336, 68 P. 810; Chaperon v. Portland Electric Co., 41 Or. 39, 67 P. 928), or from the falling of a sleeping car berth ( Hughes v. Railway Company, 39 Ohio St. 461), or from the derailment of a...