Joyner v. South Carolina Ry. Co.
| Decision Date | 04 January 1887 |
| Citation | 1 S.E. 52,26 S.C. 49 |
| Parties | JOYNER v. SOUTH CAROLINA R. CO. |
| Court | South Carolina Supreme Court |
Appeal from common pleas, Richland county.
Action against a railroad company for damages for the killing of stock. Verdict for defendant. Both parties appeal.
Allen J. Green, for plaintiff and appellant.
John C Haskell, for defendant and respondent.
The action below was brought to recover the value of two mules alleged to have been killed by a train of the defendant. The case was heard before Judge KERSHAW and a jury in July, 1885 the defendant obtaining the verdict. Both sides have appealed,--the defendant because his honor, the presiding judge, refused a motion for a nonsuit made at the close of the plaintiff's testimony; the plaintiff on several exceptions alleging error in the charge, and in certain refusals to charge.
Before stating our conclusions as to these various grounds of appeal, we deem it proper to notice, first, some of the general principles of law applicable to cases like the one at bar, as we understand them, which we will do in as few words as clearness and distinctness will admit of. The gist of all such actions is negligence which must be proved by the plaintiff to the satisfaction of the jury, under the established rules, before a recovery can be claimed. Now, what is negligence? Negligence, as held in many cases, and as laid down by all text writers upon the subject, is defined to be the absence of due care. What is due care? Due care is a relative term, each case having its own requirements in that respect; or, in other words, each subject-matter under the control and management of a person having its own demands as to due care. Consequently what would be due care as to one matter would not necessarily be so as to another. On this account it has been impossible for the law to establish any precise standard or legal definition of due care suited to every case, and which the trial judge should deliver to the jury as matter of law, to be compared by them with the evidence, so as to reach a satisfactory conclusion on the question whether or not due care is absent or present in a special case. All, therefore, that the law has determined, as a general rule, and all that the judge, in charging upon this subject, need say, is that the presence of due care negatives negligence, and that the absence of such care constitutes negligence, or, rather, affirms its presence; the jury being left to determine for themselves what due care requires, which in most cases, and especially in all matters of common concern, they are supposed to know, having a standard in their own minds with which they can compare and consider the testimony. In other cases outside of the ordinary concerns of life, and even in any case, we suppose, if thought advisable, the testimony of experts, or of others well informed upon the subject, might be offered by either party to show what due care required in the special matter before the court, and for the information and guidance of the jury.
Now, as negligence, which, as we have seen, is the absence of due care, is the gist of actions like the one below, in order to recover in such actions the absence of due care must be proved by the plaintiff. How is it to be proved? It may be proved by showing the existence of facts and circumstances which could not have occurred if due care had been present, or had been exercised; and, if such proof is introduced by the plaintiff, his case is made out, unless counter-testimony sufficiently strong to overthrow the plaintiff's evidence is introduced by the defendant. And we may say that this is the general and perhaps the most satisfactory way of proving negligence, to-wit: By the proof of facts and circumstances of a character which could not have existed if that due care had been exercised which, in the opinion of the jury, founded upon their own knowledge or evidence, as the case might be, the matter in hand required. While this is the general way, yet can it be said that this is the only way in this state?
This brings us to Danner's Case, 4 Rich. 330, which of late has become so prominent. We do not propose to discuss this case, or to examine again into its basis or foundation, with the view to test its correctness. It was decided in 1851, and it has been followed and affirmed in several cases since, after full consideration of the principles upon which it was originally based; some of these cases reaching down to a very recent date, due regard being had in their adjudication to the recent acts known as the "Stock Law." Under these circumstances, we must regard the rule laid down therein as the settled law of South Carolina, at least as long as these cases stand not overruled.
What is the rule in Danner's Case? Briefly, that case decided that, in cases like that before the court, evidence by the plaintiff that his cattle had been killed by a railroad train proved, by legal inference, the absence of due care; in other words, the presence of negligence, at least so far as to allow the plaintiff to rest, and to await the defendant's testimony, the plaintiff being entitled to recover unless the defendant's testimony removed or overthrew the prima facie case thus made out by the plaintiff. It was a judicial determination of the effect which such testimony, offered by the plaintiff, should have in all such cases, and it was established from the necessity of the case. To state the rule and its effect somewhat more distinctly, we may say that while, as a general rule, the plaintiff, in order to establish negligence, which he has charged, and which is the gist of his action, should prove the existence of facts and circumstances, if within his power, sufficient to exclude the idea of due care, yet, in cases like that below, Danner's Case has established the principle, which may be regarded as an exception to the general rule, that proof of the single fact of the killing of plaintiff's cattle shall have the effect, in the first instance, of the proof of all the facts necessary to show negligence; the court, in that case, determining, not that the plaintiff could recover without proving negligence, or that it was the duty of the defendant to disprove it in advance of the plaintiff proving it, but that the plaintiff's evidence was sufficient, prima facie, to establish it.
If this be the true meaning of the rule in Danner's Case,--and of this there can be no doubt,--then it must be conceded that, when a case is brought under that rule by the required evidence, negligence at once attaches to the defendant by presumption of law. The question now arises, how long is this prima facie presumption to remain, and to what extent is it to go?
Suppose the defendant in reply introduces testimony purporting to show the attendant facts and circumstances, does the presumption still remain of force until it is determined by the jury that these facts and circumstances have overthrown it, by establishing the presence of due care, or does it leave, ipso facto, by the introduction of such testimony, the question of negligence to depend upon the force and effect of such testimony, unaffected by such presumption? In other words, will the introduction of such testimony by the defendant expunge the presumption, leaving the case to stand upon the circumstances thus brought to light, with the onus on the plaintiff to prove negligence therefrom, as in ordinary cases. We think that, when once this presumption is established, it remains of controlling force until the defendant's evidence overthrows it, by showing either due care, unavoidable accident, or something of that kind, the burden to show which is by the prima facie case of the plaintiff, by operation of the rule in Danner's Case, thrown upon the defendant. We think so for several reasons.
In the first place, the adverse doctrine would completely emasculate and fritter away the rule. It would, in effect, overrule by implication Danner's Case, and all of the subsequent cases on the same line, in face of the fact that we have expressly declined to interfere with said rule. True when all the attendant facts are brought forward, they will show necessarily either negligence, or the absence of it, and in such case the presumption cannot be of much importance; but who is to say whether or not all the facts are brought to light in a given case? The doctrine against which we are contending is that the rule in Danner's Case applies only to cases where the defendant introduces no evidence, and makes default; and that where he introduces testimony in his defense, whether such testimony exculpates him or not, yet at that moment, and by that means, the presumption is expunged and the rule avoided, leaving the case to be decided by the facts as presented, regardless of the presumption. If this were the rule, how easy it would be for the defendant in every case to escape liability. In most of these cases, the defendant alone knows all the facts; he knows the favorable as well as the unfavorable circumstances; and if he can remove the presumption, which is all that is against him at the close of the plaintiff's testimony, by simply entering upon his defense, whether he makes a full or only a partial disclosure or not, of course he will stop short of inculpation; and who can say that he has stopped short? Besides, if he can expunge the presumption by simply offering testimony of such facts as he may choose to present, claiming them to be all the facts, he would have the power to determine the facts upon which the case would have to be tried, with the opportunity and inducement of excluding all such facts as might tend to inculpate him; thus leaving the rule in Danner's Case inert and lifeless, though still standing...
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