Leftage v. Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Company

• Decision Date: 03 July 1915
• Docket Number: 192
• Parties: Leftage v. Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Company, Appellant
• Court: Pennsylvania Supreme Court

95 A. 581

250 Pa. 452

Leftage v. Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Company, Appellant

No. 192

Supreme Court of Pennsylvania

July 3, 1915

Argued May 10, 1915

Appeal, No. 192, January T., 1914, by defendant, from judgment of C.P. Fayette Co., June T., 1912, No. 357, on verdict for plaintiff in case of Charles H. Leftage v Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Co., operating the Fairmont Morgantown and Pittsburgh Railroad Co. Affirmed.

Trespass to recover damages for personal injuries. Before UMBEL, P.J.

The facts appear by the opinion of the Supreme Court.

Verdict for plaintiff for $3,500 which was subsequently reduced by remittitur to $1,500, on which judgment was entered. Defendant appealed.

Error assigned, among others, was in refusing to direct a verdict for defendants, and in refusing defendant's motion for judgment n.o.v.

The assignments of error are overruled and the judgment is affirmed.

D. W. McDonald, James R. Cray and T. H. Hudson, for appellant.

W. R. Johnson and George Patterson, for appellee.

Before BROWN, C.J., MESTREZAT, ELKIN, MOSCHZISKER and FRAZER, JJ.

OPINION

MR. JUSTICE MOSCHZISKER:

The plaintiff sued in trespass to recover damages for personal injuries alleged to have been suffered by him through the negligence of the defendant company; he recovered a verdict of $3,500, which was subsequently reduced to $2,000, and judgment was entered accordingly; the defendant has appealed, contending that it was entitled to judgment non obstante veredicto.

Since the verdict was for the plaintiff, the evidence must be looked at in the light most favorable to him, and, when so considered, the jury might justifiably have found the facts about to be stated; therefore, we must assume such to be the material ones in the case. The accident happened November 2 1911, at four o'clock in the afternoon; the plaintiff was then about 62 years of age; he was driving a two-horse team attached to a wagon loaded with ashes; at the place of the accident the defendant maintained a railroad of three tracks, the first two, as the plaintiff approached, being used as sidings, and the third, upon which he was hurt, being the main track; he stopped his team near the first track at a point not definitely fixed in the testimony, and approached the railroad afoot for the purpose of looking and listening; a train of freight cars more than 1,300 feet long was standing on the first track, with the locomotive at the crossing in question, and this prevented the plaintiff from making an observation until he had passed beyond it; he went to the third or...