Nashville, C. & St. L. Ry. v. Vincent

• Decision Date: 07 November 1914
• Docket Number: 757
• Parties: NASHVILLE, C. & ST. L. RY. v. VINCENT.
• Court: Alabama Supreme Court

66 So. 697

190 Ala. 91

NASHVILLE, C. & ST. L. RY. v. VINCENT.

No. 757

Supreme Court of Alabama

November 7, 1914

Appeal from Circuit Court, Marshall County; W.W. Haralson, Judge.

Action by Ida Johnson Vincent against the Nashville, Chattanooga &amp St. Louis Railway. Judgment for plaintiff, and defendant appeals. Reversed and remanded.

The following is the testimony of plaintiff:

I am the plaintiff in this case. Am 19 years of age, and reside with my father and mother at Boaz in this county. We live not far from the Mann Hotel. I know where defendant's depot is at Boaz, and have been there nearly every day, several times a day, before the injury for which this suit is brought. On the occasion when I was hurt, I had been to the depot. I had gone to the depot from my home the same way I had gone before, coming down in front of the Mann Hotel and down that way, down the railroad. I had seen other people going that way all the time ever since I can remember about the place. There is a path between the tracks where people walk. On the occasion in question I was with the boy at the depot, Mrs. McClesky, and several girls visiting her. I got to the depot before the train came, and was there when it came. It came from Gadsden. between 6 and 7 o'clock in the evening. The day was July 13, 1912. It was a passenger train, and I know where the engine stopped past the depot apiece. I was down about the passenger cars where the people were getting off. When I left I went by myself, walking along the path between the tracks up toward the crossing at the Mann Hotel, and passed the engine of the train. When I passed it, it was standing still, and the engineer (Mr. Bob Lane) was standing on the ground by the tender. I knew him, and he spoke to me, saying, "Howdy, Miss Ida," I said "Howdy" to him, and went on toward the crossing. I did not hear the bell ring or whistle blow then or at any other time. I walked along this path up to the crossing, and turned across the track, and had gone just a few steps over the track when I saw the train coming. When I looked around and saw the train. I made to get out of the way, but did not. That long piece that comes out in front of the train hit me across the back and knocked me down in the gully at the switch. I fell right down at the switch and fell under that long piece of timber that runs out from the switch. I had a watch in my hand which was broken by the blow.

Spragins & Speake, of Huntsville, and Street & Isbell, of Guntersville, for appellant.

John A Lusk & Son, of Guntersville, and A.E. Hawkins, of Albertville, for appellee.

DE GRAFFENRIED, J.

The evidence of the plaintiff in this case is short, and the reporter will set it out.

1. The distance between the point where the plaintiff saw the engineer and spoke to him and the point where she was injured--a distance which she fixes in her testimony as probably being about the length of the courtroom--is shown by other testimony to have been about 60 feet, or 20 steps. The plaintiff was not a trespasser, as the path which she traveled was one which the public was accustomed to use. She had a right to cross the railroad at the point where she crossed it, for it was a public crossing; but the law required her to "stop, look, and listen," before doing so, and this she did not do. She was therefore guilty of negligence, and this negligence contributed directly and proximately to her injury. L. & N.R.R. Co. v. Loyd, 65 So. 153.

The engineer, under the...