Joiner v. Texas & P. Ry. Co

• Decision Date: 06 June 1911
• Docket Number: 18,306
• Parties: JOINER et al. v. TEXAS & P. RY. CO
• Court: Louisiana Supreme Court

55 So. 670

128 La. 1050

JOINER et al. v. TEXAS & P. RY. CO

No. 18,306

Supreme Court of Louisiana

June 6, 1911

Rehearing Denied June 26, 1911.

Appeal from Thirteenth Judicial District Court, Parish of Rapides W. F. Blackman, Judge.

Action by Mrs. Flocie Joiner and husband against the Texas & Pacific Railway Company. From a judgment for plaintiffs, defendant appeals. Affirmed.

Wm. H Peterman and Howe, Fenner, Spencer & Cocke, for appellant.

Hundley & Hawthorn, for appellees.

PROVOSTY J. SOMMERVILLE, J., takes no part herein.

OPINION

PROVOSTY, J.

Plaintiff was a passenger on the train of the defendant company from Port Allen, opposite Baton Rouge, to Alexandria. The train was composed of five cars, besides the engine and tender, namely, a mail and baggage car, a coach, part smoker and part for colored people, a chair car, and a sleeper. Plaintiff was in the chair car. As the train was entering Alexandria, at a speed of about 45 miles an hour, the engineer noticed that a switch was so set as to shunt his train to a side track upon which stood two freight cars. He shut off steam, put on the sand and the air brakes, and jumped. The fireman had already jumped. By the time of the collision, the speed of the train had been checked to 15 or 20 miles an hour. The train stopped still, as an effect of the impact; but the engine broke loose from the tender, and followed the two freight cars down the track, about 90 feet, until they bumped against a line of freight cars. The two freight cars were badly damaged. The pilot pin and the pilot of the engine were broken off. The couplings between the engine and tender were broken. Apart from this, no damage was done to the engine or cars, and, if it had not been for the broken couplings between the engine and the tender, the same engine could have gone on with the train. The brakeman and the porter went through the train to ascertain whether any one had been injured, and, apparently, none had been. On the contrary, all were talking and laughing and seemed to be in a good humor -- the reaction, probably, from the scare they had just had. After a delay of about an hour, the train went on to the station, and plaintiff got off and immediately boarded another train and continued her journey home. She arrived, about five hours later, at night, and immediately went to bed.

The sudden stop of the train had thrown her against the corner of the chair in front of her, bruising her jaw. She was six or eight weeks gone in pregnancy. She had begun immediately after the shock to feel pains in the lower abdominal regions and had continued to feel them on her way home. During the night, a slight menstrual loss commenced. The next morning she sent a note to her physician describing her symptoms, and he sent her a liniment for her jaw and some medicine to be taken internally. She continued to suffer and to lose and would remain in bed an hour or two every day, and would do little or no work. On the thirtieth day after the collision, the flow having increased alarmingly, ...