Northern Pac. R. Co. v. Blake

• Decision Date: 16 July 1894
• Docket Number: 381.
• Citation: 63 F. 45
• Parties: NORTHERN PAC. R. CO. v. BLAKE.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit

63 F. 45

NORTHERN PAC. R. CO. v. BLAKE.

No. 381.

United States Court of Appeals, Eighth Circuit.

July 16, 1894

Tilden R. Selmes (J. H. Mitchell, Jr., with him on brief), for plaintiff in error.

M. D Munn, for defendant in error.

Before CALDWELL and SANBORN, Circuit Judges, and THAYER, District judge.

THAYER District Judge.

The only question arising upon this record, which we deem it necessary to consider, is whether the trial court properly allowed the jury to determine, as it seems to have done whether the use by the defendant company of cars having double buffers, or 'double deadwoods,' as they are more frequently termed, was an act of culpable negligence such as would justify a recovery. The defendant in error brought a suit against the plaintiff in error, the Northern Pacific Railroad Company, for injuries which he had sustained while in its employ, as a brakeman, in attempting to couple together two foreign freight cars that were provided with double buffers. The complaint, as originally drawn, did not allege that the railroad company was at fault in receiving and hauling cars of that construction. But shortly after the trial began the plaintiff was permitted, over an objection made by the defendant, to amend his complaint so as to charge that the defendant was guilty of negligence in using cars with double deadwoods; and considerable testimony was thereafter introduced which tended to show that the use of double deadwoods enhances the risk of making a coupling, and that more care must be exercised in handling cars that are thus constructed. At the conclusion of the testimony the court, among other things, charged the jury as follows:

'Although cars come from other roads, and may be more dangerous, he is required to handle them; and although cars belonging to the defendant, and used on its road, were different in their construction, the plaintiff is supposed to be competent to handle all cars which the company is bound to receive and haul over its road. So that one of the questions which is involved in this allegation of negligence is, did the defendant company have in this train of cars certain cars which were not adequately and reasonably safe for the purposes for which they were used, in connection with the duty which the plaintiff was required to perform? * * * The use of double-deadwood cars upon the defendant's railroad is not per se negligence, but they may be constructed in such a way or in such a mode as would render them not reasonably safe appliances under the circumstances; and it is for you to determine whether, under the circumstances of this case, the defendant company exercised reasonable care and caution to furnish reasonably safe appliances for this plaintiff to do his work with when coupling cars.'

As there was no evidence in the case which tended to show that the cars in question differed in any respect, as to their mode of construction, from other cars having double deadwoods, we are forced to regard this portion of the charge as leaving the jury at liberty to find that the mere fact that the company had these particular cars in use on its road was an act of negligence, for which it might be held responsible. If this was not the meaning which the court intended to convey, it is certainly true that the language employed was open to that construction; and, after a careful perusal of the evidence, we are satisfied that the jury must have held the company responsible for the plaintiff's injuries solely on the ground that it did not exercise reasonable care on the occasion of the accident, in using cars with double deadwoods. It is true that there was some evidence tending to show that one of the projections forming a part of the deadwood on one of these cars had been broken off prior to the accident, but, as this was on the side of the car opposite to that on which the plaintiff was standing when he was injured, it does not seem to us at all probable that such defect in the deadwood was the proximate cause of the accident. Indeed, we can hardly conceive it to be possible that the last-mentioned defect contributed in any way to occasion the injury, or that the jury so found. It is far more probable, we think, that the jury understood that part of the charge to which we have above referred as leaving them at full liberty to find-- and that they did in fact ultimately find-- that the railway company was at fault, in view of all the circumstances of the case, merely because it used cars with double deadwoods. It accordingly becomes necessary to consider the case from that standpoint, and to determine whether it was the legitimate function of the jury to...