Monongahela Railway Company v. Black

• Decision Date: 17 July 1956
• Docket Number: No. 7217.,7217.
• Citation: 235 F.2d 406
• Parties: MONONGAHELA RAILWAY COMPANY, a corporation, Appellant, v. Robert H. BLACK, Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fourth Circuit

235 F.2d 406 (1956)

MONONGAHELA RAILWAY COMPANY, a corporation, Appellant, v. Robert H. BLACK, Appellee.

No. 7217.

United States Court of Appeals Fourth Circuit.

Argued June 21, 1956.

Decided July 17, 1956.

Russell B. Goodwin and Charles P. Mead, Wheeling, W. Va., for appellant.

Albert D. Brandon, Pittsburgh, Pa. (John B. Garden, Wheeling, W. Va., and Thomas Park Shearer, Pittsburgh, Pa., on brief), for appellee.

Before PARKER, Chief Judge, PRETTYMAN, Circuit Judge, and TIMMERMAN, District Judge.

TIMMERMAN, District Judge.

On this appeal, "It is contended by the Monongahela Railway Company that the Safety Appliance Acts should not have been applied to the case and that the verdict of the Jury was so excessive as to shock the conscience and create the impression that the jury misinterpreted the facts or the law." (pp. 3 and 4 of Appellant's brief.)

The plaintiff recovered a verdict below in the amount of $21,400, on account of personal injuries received when he was struck by a moving freight car on a side track at the Arkwright Coal Mine. The siding at the mine consists of four side tracks which pass under a loading tipple owned by the Pittsburg Consolidation Coal Company. The tracks run on a downgrade of one degree, the South end having an elevation lower than the North end, so that when empty cars are placed on the side tracks by appellant from the main line at the North, the cars are powered Southward by the force of gravity. When empties are placed on the side tracks, their brakes are applied until they are ready to be loaded. When a car is ready for loading, its brakes are released, and the car is allowed to coast downgrade to the tipple which is located a slight distance South of the midpoint of the side tracks. When the car reaches the tipple, its brakes are again applied, and during loading, the car is further secured by a chain and retarder. After loading, the car is released from the tipple and is allowed to coast down to the South end where the brakes are again applied and where it remains until the railroad picks it up and carries it to its destination.

The side tracks are numbered one through four. The side track closest to the main line, or the one most eastward, is the number one track. The one most westward is number four.

At the time of plaintiff's injury, plaintiff was standing on the number two track at the South end facing West. He was checking numbers on loaded cars on the number three track preparatory to returning them to the main line. Plaintiff was a conductor employed by appellant and was in charge of a train crew consisting of a brakeman, a flagman, a fireman, and an engineer. There were other loaded cars, with which plaintiff was not then concerned, standing on the number two track North of plaintiff and South of the tipple. One of the Coal Company's "car droppers," the witness Forys, was riding two loaded cars down from the tipple on track number two, intending to apply the brakes on the lead car and bring the cars to a halt before reaching the other loaded cars. When Forys attempted to apply the brakes, the brakes failed to take hold, and the two cars crashed into the standing cars causing them to suddenly lurch downgrade against plaintiff.

While this appeal presents two issues for consideration, the primary one is that which challenges the correctness of the trial judge's ruling that the cars on the side track, placed there by appellant and to be removed by appellant when loaded, were on appellant's line within the meaning of the Safety Appliance Act, 45 U.S.C.A. §§ 1 through 46. It is urged that since the offending car was on a side track, it was not in use on appellant's line.

45 U.S.C.A. § 11 provides:

"It shall be unlawful for any common carrier subject to the provisions of sections 11-16 of this title to haul, or permit to be hauled or used on its line, any car subject to the provisions of said sections not equipped with appliances provided for in said sections, to wit: All cars must be equipped with * * * efficient hand brakes * * *." (Emphasis added.)

To support its argument that the offending car was not in use on its line, appellant relies upon the Third Circuit's decision in Patton v. Baltimore & Ohio R. Co., 3 Cir., 197 F.2d 732, wherein the B & O was absolved of liability under the Act for the reason that its cars had been delivered to the Duquesne Slag Products Company and were, at the time of Patton's fatal injury, being operated over Duquesne's own independent railway system. Appellant seeks to bring the present case within the rationale of Patton upon the theory that the offending car was being operated by and was under the control of the Coal Company at the time of plaintiff's injury. With this, we cannot agree. We think Patton is inapplicable to the facts of the instant case. The facts in the Patton case were exceptional. In the language of the Court, 197 F.2d at page 740:

"None of the foregoing decisions, however, involved facts such as those before us. In each there was but one railroad system involved. Here we are concerned with a situation where one railroad, B & O, has delivered its cars and another private railroad system, Duquesne\'s, has moved the cars, set the brakes and assumed control throughout the process of unloading. Duquesne, as we have said, had its own tracks, engine and crew.

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