Illinois Cent. R. Co. v. Davidson

• Decision Date: 27 November 1894
• Docket Number: 179.
• Citation: 64 F. 301
• Parties: ILLINOIS CENT. R. CO. v. DAVIDSON.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit

64 F. 301

ILLINOIS CENT. R. CO. v. DAVIDSON.

No. 179.

United States Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit.

November 27, 1894

This is an action brought by Wilbur F. Davidson, the defendant in error and plaintiff below, against the Illinois Central Railroad Company, to recover damages for a personal injury to the plaintiff, the result of an accident happening upon defendant's road in the city of Chicago, on February 27 1893. The plaintiff was a citizen of Michigan, and resided at Port Huron, in that state. He was engaged in the business of selling on commission various kinds of electrical apparatus for the General Electric Company of New York. In the latter part of February, 1893, he came to Chicago, with a Mr Annesley, for the purpose of showing him a certain electric plant in active operation, of the kind sold by plaintiff situated at Hyde Park, in Chicago, near the line of the defendant's railroad. Mr. Annesley was an expert for another company, who wishes to buy an apparatus. On arriving at Chicago, Davidson, the plaintiff, arranged with John L Martin, a friend of his, residing in Chicago, and engaged in the same business, to go with plaintiff and Annesley to Hyde Park, to examine this plant. They all embarked at Van Buren street on a suburban train belonging to the defendant at about 5:45 o'clock on the evening of February 27th, and reached Hyde Park station at 6:10 p.m. The accident happened after the plaintiff and his party had left the car at Hyde Park. The railroad company, pursuant to an ordinance of the city, had, shortly previous to this time, been engaged in raising its tracks at this point, of which they had had theretofore six in use. The four most easterly of these had been raised to a height of nineteen feet above the city datum, by substantial earth embankments. Trains were running on all of these four tracks. The road ran at this point north and south. The most westerly of these four tracks was the regular south-bound suburban track, and over which the plaintiff passed. The next most westerly track was the north-bound suburban track. The third track, counting from the west, was for south-bound through passenger and freight trains, and the most easterly track was for north-bound through passenger and freight trains. The two other tracks lying west of these four had not been raised, and were not then being used. A platform, 230 feet long, had been provided by the company for the use of passengers on the west side of the track over which the plaintiff passed, leading down north by a pair of stone stairs into Fifty-Third street. This platform and stairs were built and intended for the use of passengers landing at Hyde Park from these suburban trains. There was no platform on the east side of the track intended for passengers. There was planking, however, placed between the different tracks, and east of all was a platform ending in an incline leading down to the level of the street, for the purpose of carrying baggage to and from the through trains. The evidence of plaintiff, however, showed that people living on the east side of the tracks were in the habit of getting off on that side and crossing the other tracks, and some of the evidence tended to show there were stairs not far distant on that side, where passengers descended to the street. This was denied by the witnesses for the defendant. On the arrival of the train at Fifty-Third street, about dark, Mr. Davidson and his friends got off on the east side, and crossed over track No. 2, and started to walk north upon the planking between that track and No. 3. For some cause, not explained, Martin and Annesley got off a little sooner than Davidson, and Davidson lost sight of them. He says, after alighting there were people between them and him, and he could not see them; that he stepped out of the car on the platform at the north end, and looked to the right and left, and did not see them, and that a trainman, or person in uniform that he took for a trainman, standing right opposite to him on the platform of the next car, seeing him, plaintiff, hesitate, said, 'This way,' or 'Down here,' or 'This side,' by which plaintiff understood the man to mean that his friends had gone that way; that he saw other people getting off there, and that he got off upon the ground, looked up and down to see there was no train coming, and then crossed over one track upon the planking between two tracks,-- the first one he came to; that he looked up, and saw people going north, and among them his two friends, and that he walked rapidly along in that direction; that there was no platform there on that side, but only a board or plank walk on a level with the other tracks, that he walked a short distance, when a freight train came up from the north, on his right side, and that a little after he felt he had been hit, and lost consciousness. The train that struck him, however, was not the freight train which he saw going south, but a suburban passenger train from the south on track No. 2, west of him on his immediate left, and which he had just crossed. He was knocked down, receiving a blow on the head, and other injuries, and was taken by his friends to a drug store near by, and from there back to the city that night. The evidence shows that these railroad tracks were 13 feet apart from center to center; that the width of the suburban coaches, as well as the freight cars, was 8 feet 8 inches, outside measurements; that two such cars, passing each other, would leave a space between them of 4 feet 4 inches; that the planking between the tracks, upon which the plaintiff was walking while injured, consisted of five 1-foot planks, laid parallel with the tracks; that the distance between the east rail of the north-bound suburban track and the west rail of the south-bound through track, on which the freight train passed, was 7 feet 11 inches; that there was a space of about 9 inches between the edge of the planking and the rail on either side; and that the planking was laid on about the same level with the tracks. The evidence of defendant tended also to show that this planking laid between the tracks was placed there for the convenience of passengers arriving on the north-bound suburban and the south-bound through tracks in getting from their respective trains to the platform and stone steps on the west side of all the tracks, and leading down through the stone abutment to Fifty-Third street. These are the main facts, so far as seems necessary to state them for the proper understanding of the points of law.

Sidney F. Andrews (James Fentress, of counsel), for plaintiff in error.

Edward R. Woodle, for defendant in error.

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