Martin v. Johnston
| Decision Date | 06 April 1955 |
| Citation | 49 A.L.R.2d 1297,79 So.2d 419 |
| Parties | John W. MARTIN, as Trustee of the property of Florida East Coast Railway Company, Appellant, v. James E. JOHNSTON, Appellee. |
| Court | Florida Supreme Court |
Anderson, Scott, McCarthy & Preston, Dwight Sullivan, Miami, and Russell L. Frink, Jacksonville, for appellant.
Nichols, Gaither, Green, Frates & Beckham, William S. Frates, Walter H. Beckham, Jr., and Sam Daniels, Miami, for appellee.
This is an appeal from a final judgment entered in favor of the plaintiff in a personal injury action for damages arising out of an accident which occurred at a country railroad crossing when the track motor-car of the railroad company which the plaintiff was operating was derailed after running into some dirt and rocks which had been pushed onto the rails by a county road scraper.
The accident was caused by the failure of the hand brakes on the car to respond when the plaintiff attempted to apply them as the car approached the place where the dirt and rocks lay on the tracks; and the cause of action of the plaintiff is predicated not on negligence but on the failure of the railroad company to comply with the provision of the Federal Safety Appliance Act which requires that 'all cars must be equipped with * * * efficient hand brakes.' 45 U.S.C.A. § 11. The sole question on the appeal is whether or not a track motor-car used by railroad maintenance employees, when not attached to a train or used as part of a train movement, comes within the provisions of the Federal Safety Appliance Act.
The sections of the Act bearing on the point are, in substance as follows:
Section 16. 'The provisions of sections 11-16 of this title, as to the equipment of cars with the designated safety appliances apply to every common carrier and every vehicle subject to * * * sections 1-10 of this title.'
Section 8. 'Provisions of certain sections extended * * * the provisions and requirements relating to train brakes, automatic couplers (etc.) shall be held to apply to all trains, locomotives, tenders, cars, and similar vehicles used on any railroad engaged in interstate commerce (with stated exceptions not here applicable).'
We find nothing in the statutes or the reported decisions to indicate an intention that in the enactment of the above quoted statutes the Congress intended that the word 'car' should be used in a narrow, rather than in a broad, sense. As was said by the Supreme Court of the United States in Johnson v. Southern Pacific Co., 196 U.S. 1, 25 S.Ct. 158, 161, 49 L.Ed. 363, soon after the enactment of the law, ...
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Dykes v. Norfolk and Western Ry. Co.
...that the court's decision in Baltimore and Ohio Ry. Co. v. Jackson is controlling of the result here. Both that case and Martin v. Johnston (Fla.1955), 79 So.2d 419, also cited by the plaintiff, were concerned with whether certain maintenance-of-way vehicles used upon the railroad came with......
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Baltimore and Ohio Railway Company v. Jackson
...* * * regardless of whatever else it might also be.' Id., at 918. In 1955 the Supreme Court of Florida unanimously held in Martin v. Johnston, Fla., 79 So.2d 419, that the same type motor track car as is involved here came within the terms of the Acts. There the motor track car was being us......
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Seaboard Coast Line R. Co. v. Gillis
...(5th Cir. 1953, Ala.). A motorcar such as Gillis was operating falls within the ambit of 'cars' under the Hand Brake Act. Martin v. Johnston, 79 So.2d 419 (Fla.), cert. denied, 350 U.S. 835, 76 S.Ct. 71, 100 L.Ed. 745 (1955). Since a violation of the Act is made out simply by a failure of t......
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Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Company v. Jackson
...New York, N. H. & H. R. Co., 2 Cir., 1934, 74 F.2d 227, certiorari denied, 1935, 294 U.S. 715, 55 S.Ct. 513, 79 L.Ed. 1248; Martin v. Johnston, Fla., 79 So.2d 419, certiorari denied, 1955, 350 U.S. 835, 76 S.Ct. 71. Appellant, however, correctly points to the fact that the statute as origin......