Hallada v. Great Northern Ry.

• Decision Date: 25 February 1955
• Docket Number: No. 36378,36378
• Parties: William E. HALLADA, Jr., Respondent, v. GREAT NORTHERN RAILWAY, Appellant.
• Court: Minnesota Supreme Court

Page 673

69 N.W.2d 673

244 Minn. 81

William E. HALLADA, Jr., Respondent, v. GREAT NORTHERN RAILWAY, Appellant.

No. 36378.

Supreme Court of Minnesota.

Feb. 25, 1955.

Rehearing Denied April 1, 1955.

SYLLABUS BY THE COURT

1. The duty imposed by the Federal Safety Appliance Act, 27 Stat. 531, 45 U.S.C.A. § 2, is absolute and wholly unrelated to any question of negligence.

2. The failure of couplers to couple automatically upon impact is of itself an actionable wrong under the Federal Safety Appliance Act but only if at least one of the couplers is in an open position so as to operate automatically on impact.

3. Although the failure of couplers to couple automatically upon impact does not constitute a violation of the Federal Safety Appliance Act unless one of the coupler knuckles is open, it is no defense that the failure to couple upon impact is caused by a misalignment of the drawbars.

4. A violation of the Federal Safety Appliance Act creates an absolute liability for damages Proximately caused either In whole or in part by such violation.

5. The failure of couplers to function properly, which in turn results in sudden and violent car movements which throw brakemen off their balance, is a recognized proximate cause of injuries which are sustained when the brakemen are thrown off the cars upon which they are riding.

6. In an action under the Federal Safety Appliance Act, the contributory negligence of the injured employee is immaterial Unless it is the sole proximate cause of his injury.

7. Pursuant to Rule 49.02 of Rules of Civil Procedure, the trial court, under the circumstances here existing, did not abuse its discretion in refusing to submit requested written interrogatories to the jury.

8. Where a claim for relief under the Federal Safety Appliance Act is joined with a negligence action under the Federal Employers' Liability Act, the two causes of action should be clearly distinguished and separated and the court should impress upon the jury the importance of distinguishing between the two causes.

9. Where the disability of the plaintiff involves an amputation of an entire limb, and even complications from other injuries, the testimony of witnesses with similar major amputations as to what they are individually able to do in their particular callings is admissible only in the exercise of a sound discretion, and in the exercise of that discretion the trial court must weigh the probative value of such testimony against the probability that it will mislead or prejudice the jury.

10. It is a matter of common knowledge and no evidence is required to establish the truth of the proposition that a man with only one arm, who is not otherwise disabled and who is otherwise qualified, is able to pursue certain gainful employment such as that of a salesman.

11. The granting of a new trial because of misconduct of the prevailing party, his witnesses, or of his counsel, rests within the discretion of the trial judge and will not be reversed unless there is an abuse of discretion.

12. In personal injury actions it is elementary that the injured party should be made financially Whole by receiving the monetary equivalent of the harm sustained by him, inclusive of his medical expenses, pain and suffering, past loss of earnings, and, where a permanent injury is inflicted, his future losses due to impaired earning capacity.

13. Mortality tables, based on the average life of a large group of persons, have considerable evidentiary value but they are neither decisive of the injured person's life expectancy nor of the number of years his earning capacity would have continued undiminished had he not been injured.

14. The reasonableness of an award for damages can be appraised only in the light of the elementary principle that plaintiff should be given neither more nor less than a sum which leaves him financially 'whole' to the same extent as he would have been had no injury occurred.

15. Whatever process is adopted in fixing an injured person's damages, the reasonableness of the lump sum awarded by the jury must in the last analysis be tested from the unitary standpoint of what total financial benefits that lump sum will reasonably confer upon the injured person as a means of making him financially 'whole.'

16. No verdict can be sustained unless it stands the test of reasonableness in the light of its over-all effect.

Edwin C. Matthias, Anthony Kane, W. P. Westphal, St. Paul, R. J. Quinlivan, St. Cloud, for appellant.

Davis, Rerat, Yaeger & Lush, Minneapolis, Peter Ahles, St. Cloud, for respondent.

MATSON, Justice.

In an action under the Federal Employers' Liability Act, 45 U.S.C.A. § 51 et seq., and the Federal Safety Appliance Act, 45 U.S.C.A. § 1 et seq., defendant appeals from an order denying its motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict or in the alternative for a new trial.

On October 16, 1952, plaintiff was a brakeman on one of defendant's freight trains traveling east from Devils Lake, North Dakota. The train reached Lakota, North Dakota, about 5:15 a.m. There the engine and two boxcars were uncoupled from the remainder of the train and used in switching operations. A flatcar was kicked westward onto a side track. Plaintiff boarded the flatcar for the purpose of stopping it with the hand brake at a storage pile located farther westward along the side track. The flatcar stopped prematurely, however, so that its east end was near the frog of the switch, thereby blocking passage along the track from which it had been kicked.

Thereafter, the acting foreman told plaintiff to check whether the brake was set on the flatcar. Plaintiff inspected the brake chain and reported that the brake was not set. In response to the acting foreman's direction, plaintiff again boarded the flatcar and began to take up the slack of the hand brake. The flatcar was to be shoved farther westward to the storage pile. Plaintiff testified that he intended to take up the slack on the wheel-operated hand brake near the east end of the flatcar and then move to the center of the car Before signaling the acting foreman to shove the flatcar westward. The acting foreman, however, contends that plaintiff had previously told him verbally to go ahead and back up, which would mean that the two boxcars attached to the engine could be moved westward in order to shove the flatcar to the storage pile along the side track.

While plaintiff was still attempting to take up the slack from the brake, he heard the noise of an oncoming car behind him. He grabbed the brake wheel and braced himself. The sudden impact from the collision of the oncoming cars and engine with the flatcar, without effecting a coupling, threw plaintiff forward and backward a couple of times before he lost his grip and was thrown to the railroad right of way.

Plaintiff lay on the right of way for 15 or 20 minutes. Then he walked to the depot where a doctor administered morphine to relieve the pain. He was next taken in an ambulance about 60 miles to a hospital at Grand Forks. On plaintiff's arrival at the hospital, his right arm was operated on in an effort to restore blood circulation which had stopped after the artery had been severed by the broken bones in the arm. This effort was unsuccessful; therefore, it was necessary to amputate plaintiff's arm the next day. A few days later, plaintiff complained of pain in his back. He was X-rayed and no bony damage was found by the railroad's doctor. Nevertheless, diathermy was administered to plaintiff's back. There was considerable hemorrhaging in the arm and extending under the chest muscles. Plaintiff remained in the hospital for 28 days.

At the time of the trial, the bone in the stump of plaintiff's right arm measured about two and a half inches in length. Plaintiff cannot wear a usable artificial arm. He could, however, wear an artificial arm for the cosmetic purpose of filling out a coat sleeve. The objective findings of the doctors established atrophy of the right chest and shoulder muscles, amputation of the right arm, a very mild compression fracture of the eighth thoracic vertebra, and muscle spasm or tightness in lower region of the lower thoracic and upper lumbar vertebra. Plaintiff's subjective symptoms are pain in his back, numbness in his buttocks, 'phantom pain' where his right hand and arm used to be, and tenderness in the stump of his right arm. There was considerabe discrepancy among the opinions of the doctors as to the probable duration of the pain of which plaintiff complained.

The jury awarded plaintiff a verdict of $170,154.81. Defendant moved for judgment notwithstanding the verdict or a new trial, and it appeals from the denial of this motion.

The issues arising on this appeal involve: (1) Whether the failure of two cars to couple upon impact, when both coupler knuckles are open, constitutes a violation of the Federal Safety Appliance Act; (2) negligence; (3) proximate cause; (4) whether the trial court erred in refusing to submit written interrogatories to the jury; (5) whether the charge to the jury was prejudicially erroneous for failure to separate and distinguish sufficiently plaintiff's claim for relief under the Federal Safety Appliance Act from his negligence claim under the Federal Employers' Liability Act; (6) alleged errors in the exclusion of evidence; (7) misconduct of plaintiff's expert witness; (8) alleged misconduct of plaintiff's counsel; (9) whether the verdict is excessive and whether same resulted from passion and prejudice.

1--2. The Federal Safety Appliance Act, 27 Stat. 531, 45 U.S.C.A. § 2, provides that:

'It shall be unlawful for any common carrier engaged in interstate commerce by railroad to haul or permit to be hauled or used on its line any car used in moving interstate traffic not equipped with couplers coupling automatically by impact, and which can be uncoupled without the necessity of men going between the ends of the cars.'

The duty imposed by this...