Hamilton v. Missouri Pac. Ry. Co.
| Decision Date | 19 March 1925 |
| Docket Number | 24678 |
| Citation | 270 S.W. 100 |
| Parties | HAMILTON et ux. v. MISSOURI PAC. RY. CO |
| Court | Missouri Supreme Court |
George F. Heege, of Clayton, for appellants.
Edward J. White, James F. Green, A. E. L. Gardner, and M. U. Hayden all of St. Louis, for respondent.
This is an action by the parents of Alvin Hamilton, aged 17, to recover $ 10,000 damages for the death of their son. There was a verdict for the defendant, and plaintiffs appealed.
Alvin Hamilton was at Castlewood, a station and summer resort on defendant's railroad on Sunday, September 10, 1920. He bought a ticket for Kirkwood, 10 or 12 miles east of Castlewood, and he, with others, about 7 p. m. undertook to board the eastbound passenger train. There were four passenger coaches in the train, but the seats, aisles, and platforms were so crowded that he and one of his companions were unable to get inside a coach, and were compelled to stand on the lower step at the front end of the third coach. There is a tunnel a few miles east of Castlewood through which the trains pass. There is a clearance of about eight inches between the coaches and the walls of the tunnel. The track of the defendant's railroad at and near the west entrance to this tunnel was in an unsafe condition. The ballast had been washed from underneath the ties, and the ties were 'loose and wobbly.' In this condition of the track when a train was running at high speed the coaches would be thrown and caused to lurch towards and dangerously near to the wall of the tunnel. The conductor took up Alvin's ticket before the train reached the tunnel, saw him standing on the lower step of the coach holding to the handrails, but did not warn him that the train would pass through the tunnel, or that his position exposed him to danger. It was nearly or quite dark when the train, running from 30 to 35 miles an hour, arrived at the tunnel. The defendant's engineer, a witness for the defendant testified the speed was 30 miles per hour. When the train reached this defective track it lurched 'and swung from one side to the other, and this swung Alvin out, and by that time he was right at the entrance of the tunnel, and he swung out and the tunnel wall hit him, and I tried -- it knocked him up against me and I tried to hold him, and the train went on through the tunnel, and they stopped just about Barrett's station.' So testified Roland Knieriem, who was standing beside Alvin on the lower step of the coach. Witness and some of the trainmen went back and found young Hamilton's body 10 or 15 feet inside the tunnel. It was not shown how long the track had been in this defective condition, but from the appearance it might reasonably be inferred to have been long enough, by the exercise of due diligence, to have been discovered and repaired....
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