Lancette v. Great N. Ry. Co.

• Decision Date: 02 August 1918
• Docket Number: No. 20891.,20891.
• Citation: 168 N.W. 634,140 Minn. 488
• Parties: LANCETTE v. GREAT NORTHERN RY. CO.
• Court: Minnesota Supreme Court

140 Minn. 488

168 N.W. 634

LANCETTE

v.GREAT NORTHERN RY. CO.

No. 20891.

Supreme Court of Minnesota.

Aug. 2, 1918.

Appeal from District Court, Ramsey County; James C. Michael, Judge.

Action by Fred Lancette against the Great Northern Railway Company. From a judgment for plaintiff, defendant appeals. Affirmed.

Syllabus by the Court

Plaintiff claims to have been thrown from the top of a freight car by a negligent coupling operation. The evidence sustains the verdict of the jury that the coupling was negligently made and that plaintiff did not assume the risk. M. L. Countryman and A. L. Janes, both of St. Paul, for appellant.

Wickersham & Metcalf, of St. Paul, for respondent.

HALLAM, J.

Plaintiff was a switchman in defendant's railroad yards. He was riding on top and at the foremost end of the forward car of a string of 19 freight cars that had been ‘kicked’ on to a switch. The engine, at tached to another string of 15 cars, was backing up to make a coupling. Plaintiff knew of the purpose to make this coupling, and the operation was of the usual kind in railroad switching. The negligence claimed is that the engine was moved back with unusual speed and made the coupling with unusual violence and that thereby plaintiff was thrown from the top of the car and was injured. The jury found for plaintiff. Defendant appealed.

The evidence is not of a satisfactory kind. Plaintiff claimed that the accident had obliterated all recollection of the events of that day. The evidence in his behalf is that of three workmen in an adjoining yard of the St. Paul Founday Company. These men did not see plaintiff until he was in the act of falling, but they heard the noise of the coupling operation. They testified that the coupling was made with ‘an extraordinary noise.’ Some of the testimony of these men was plainly exaggerated. For example, one of them testified that plaintiff was sent flying through the air a distance of 15 feet ahead of the car he was riding. Impact upon the car from behind could not send plaintiff ‘flying’ forward any great distance. The natural tendency of the impact would be to throw him backward. The fact remains, however, that plaintiff ‘went forward’ off the car at or about the moment of the coupling and there is evidence from which it might be found that the coupling was unusually violent. It does not seem impossible that a man at the brake wheel on top of and at the forward end of a box car should fall forward and over the end of the...