Hunt v. St. Louis & S.F.R. Co.

• Decision Date: 01 December 1914
• Citation: 171 S.W. 64,262 Mo. 271
• Parties: ALICE HUNT v. ST. LOUIS & SAN FRANCISCO RAILROAD COMPANY, Appellant
• Court: Missouri Supreme Court

171 S.W. 64

262 Mo. 271

ALICE HUNT v. ST. LOUIS & SAN FRANCISCO RAILROAD COMPANY, Appellant

Supreme Court of Missouri

December 1, 1914

Appeal from Cape Girardeau Circuit Court. -- Hon. Henry C. Riley Judge.

Reversed.

W. F Evans, Moses Whybark and A. P. Stewart for appellant.

(1) The case was one of mutual fault, to say the least of it, and the law will not cast all the consequences on the defendant, nor will it attempt any apportionment of it. Zumault v Railroad, 175 Mo. 288. In this case Zumault at night, while waiting for a train, sat down on the platform and went to sleep, and was struck by a train. (2) The deceased lived near the railroad, a few feet from it, and knew of approaching trains, yet he lay down -- all of his body off the track and his head resting on the west rail. He knew that trains would pass, and their time at that point, and plaintiff is not entitled to recover. The law is well settled that where one even negligently places himself in front of a rapidly approaching train and is injured thereby, he cannot recover if the employees in charge of the train used reasonable care to avoid the injury, after they discovered his perilous position, or by the exercise of ordinary care might have discovered it. Harlan v. Railroad, 64 Mo. 483. When one wilfully exposes himself to danger and is injured, there is no liability no matter what the result may be. Prewitt v. Eddy, 115 Mo. 283; Prewitt v. Railroad, 134 Mo. 632; Moore v. Railroad, 126 Mo. 276; Pope v. Railroad, 242 Mo. 232.

Edw. D. Hays and David B. Hays for respondent.

(1) Appellant undertakes to shift responsibility on the theory of mutual fault, along with the suggestion that the law will not attempt to divide or apportion the fault. But it was within the province of the jury to determine the question of contributory negligence from the evidence offered; and the burden of establishing such contributory negligence was properly rested on the defendant asserting it. Prewitt v. Railroad, 134 Mo. 615; Thompson v. Railroad, 243 Mo. 336. (2) Regardless of the facts in the case the defense of contributory negligence is not open to the defendant. In the answer to the second count of plaintiff's petition, being the count on which plaintiff recovered, defendant did not admit negligence and seek to excuse it. The answer was an outright denial of any negligence whatever on the part of defendant. Any plea of contributory negligence must be a plea of confession and avoidance. Allen v. Transit Co., 183 Mo. 411; Ramp v. Met. St. Ry., 144 Mo.App. 1. (3) Violation of such ordinance is negligence per se. Jackson v. Railroad, 157 Mo. 621; Prewitt v. Railroad, 134 Mo. 615; Hutchinson v. Railroad, 161 Mo. 246; Sluder v. Transit Co., 189 Mo. 107; Stotler v. Railroad, 200 Mo. 107; Sec. 9233, R. S. 1909. A railroad inviting the use of its track for pedestrianism must use care to correspond with the circumstances. Murphy v. Railroad, 226 Mo. 56; Fearons v. Railroad, 180 Mo. 208; Schaaf v. St. L. B. & B. Co., 151 Mo.App. 35; Thompson v. Railroad, 243 Mo. 336.

BLAIR, C. Brown, C., concurs. Lamm, C. J., dissents in separate opinion in which Walker, J., joins.

OPINION

In Banc

BLAIR C.

-- Plaintiff recovered judgment for $ 3000 as damages for the death of her husband, George Hunt, and defendant appealed. The petition contains two counts -- one invoking the humanitarian doctrine and the other alleging that Hunt's death was due to defendant's negligence in violating an ordinance of the city of Cape Girardeau restricting the speed of trains to five miles per hour.

The answer contained, among other things, a plea of contributory negligence.

At the close of plaintiff's evidence and again at the close of all the evidence in the case defendant requested the trial court to direct the jury to find for it on both counts and excepted to the refusal to do so. On the first count the jury expressly found for defendant and thus denied plaintiff's right to recover on the humanitarian doctrine. The verdict was for plaintiff on the second count, and it is with that count alone we are now concerned. It is contended the evidence pertinent to the issues under the second count is not sufficient to support the verdict rendered thereon.

The relevant facts are as follows: Defendant operates a railroad passing through Cape Girardeau from north to south and entering the city at a point about 130 feet north of Sloan Creek in that city, and an ordinance of the city was in force restricting the speed of trains to five miles per hour within the city limits. On the night he was killed, Hunt had been drinking and about midnight started home accompanied by two acquaintances. The three proceeded north across the railroad bridge over Sloan Creek and thence along the track a few feet to a point where a cinder path led westwardly from the track, and there, about twenty or thirty minutes after midnight, Hunt's companions left the railroad and went to a brothel where they spent the remainder of the night. When these men left him Hunt "started like he was going on up the track home" and they supposed he did so but gave him no further attention. One of them testified that just before they left him Hunt was "staggering to some extent" and was somewhat under the influence of liquor. About an hour and ten minutes thereafter one of defendant's trains struck and killed Hunt. The train ran 240 to 250 feet farther and stopped. Hunt's body was found very near the spot where his two companions left him but on the west side of the track, a few feet north of a switchstand, his head lying very near the north end of the trestle which forms the north approach to defendant's bridge over Sloan Creek. A bundle of clothing, probably a suit of overalls in which Hunt worked, lay five or six feet north of the body and between the rails. There was a little blood on the west rail and there was a pool of blood west of the track at the point where Hunt's head rested after he was struck. The upper front quarter of the right side of the man's head was stricken or crushed off. There were no other wounds of any consequence on the body. There was no external evidence of previous violence. So far as plaintiff's evidence is concerned there was nothing to show the speed at which the train was running when it struck Hunt unless it can be said to be inferable from the distance the train ran after striking him and the testimony that such a train running ten miles an hour could be stopped in about 150 or 300 feet. There was, however, no evidence for plaintiff tending to show whether the brakes were applied before, at the time or after the engine struck Hunt.

For defendant the engineer who had charge of the train which killed Hunt testified that the track north of Sloan Creek was straight for about 800 feet; that about 1:38 a. m. he rounded the curve and came out upon this tangent at the rate of forty miles per hour; that when his engine reached a point about 700 feet from the north end of the bridge he saw what he suspected to be a man lying with his head on or near the west rail and near the north end of the bridge and immediately made every effort, consistent with the safety of his train, to stop, but was unable to do so, though he reduced the speed of the train so that it was running about fifteen or eighteen miles per hour when Hunt was struck; that Hunt was lying with his head on a bundle of clothing on or near the west rail, his head partly over the rail; that his face was upward and his body and feet extended westward and away from the track; that Hunt did not move at all but lay supine until the step attached to the pilot, and about four and one-half or five inches above the rail, struck him; that it was this step which inflicted the wound above described, and an examination thereafter disclosed that it was bent and had blood and hair upon it; that the force of the blow turned the body somewhat and turned it partially around.

The violation of a valid and applicable city ordinance restricting the speed of trains is negligence per se, and substantial evidence of such violation plus like evidence of a causal connection between such negligence and an injury is sufficient to sustain a verdict against the violator, all issues being properly submitted, unless contributory negligence appears as a matter of law.

In this case the position of the body after Hunt was struck, its nearness to the rail, the nature of the wound which caused his death and the absence of other wounds save such scratches and bruises as were necessarily incident to his being hurled upon the cinders beside the track demonstrate that Hunt must, when struck, have been lying with his head on or near the west rail of defendant's track and must have been struck in some such manner as the engineer testified he was. The plaintiff's evidence shows that an examination of Hunt's head disclosed that the "skull was gone down on the forehead just above the eye and the edge of the wound was just about the middle of the forehead, extending upward and backward, including the forward fourth of the right side;" to that extent "the skull was missing; it was cut off on the right side down to the eye-brow just about in the center, about one-fourth of the skull above the ear; not back of the ear to any extent; . . . only a portion of the brain was there." It is inconceivable that a car or engine wheel could have thus crushed or cut a corner out of a man's skull, and it is impossible that Hunt could have been sitting or standing when he received the wound described without receiving others on his trunk and limbs, unless he stood beside the track and held his head out over it, an inference which would destroy plaintiff's case at once. There is no escape from the conclusion that Hunt...