Northern Pac. R. Co. v. Peterson

• Decision Date: 01 May 1893
• Docket Number: 199.,198
• Parties: NORTHERN PAC. R. CO. v. PETERSON et al., (two cases.)
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit

55 F. 940

NORTHERN PAC. R. CO. v. PETERSON et al., (two cases.)

Nos. 198, 199.

United States Court of Appeals, Eighth Circuit.

May 1, 1893

Tilden R. Selmes, for plaintiff in error.

John W Arctander, for defendants in error.

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

SANBORN Circuit Judge.

These writs of error were sued out to reverse two judgments against the Northern Pacific Railroad Company, the plaintiff in error, and in favor of the defendants in error, respectively which were rendered on account of personal injuries resulting to them from the collision of an engine and train of cars operated by the company with a wagon in which they were crossing the railroad upon the public highway. The defendants in error, who were the plaintiffs below, and who will be so designated, brought separate actions, but these actions were tried together to the same jury, and the verdicts and judgments rest upon the same record. This record discloses the following facts:

Between 7 and 8 o'clock in the evening of November 28, 1890, the engine drawing a passenger train struck the wagon in which the plaintiffs were crossing the track, and seriously injured them. There was no moon. The night was dark and cloudy. The plaintiffs were returning from St. Paul, where they had been to market some produce, to their homes in Chisago county about 37 miles northeast of the city. White Bear is a town between St. Paul and Chisago county, and the accident occurred at the crossing of one of the highways between St Paul and White Bear, about six miles from the city. The railroad runs east and west at this point and the highway crosses it at grade, and at right angles. The train that injured the plaintiffs came from the east, and struck them as they crossed the track going north. Two hundred feet east of the crossing the railroad enters a cut which is 400 feet in length, about 9 feet in depth at its deepest point, and which diminishes in depth in each direction from that point. For about 1,900 feet east of the crossing the track is straight but at that point there is a sharp curve in a cut about 16 feet deep. On account of the cut 200 feet east of the crossing, and other obstructions to the vision, one approaching the railroad from the south on the highway could not see an engine approaching the crossing from the east at a distance of more than 540 feet when he was further south than 47 feet from the middle of the track, but from that point to the track the line of vision rapidly extended until, when he reached the track, he could see an engine approaching at a distance of about 2,000 feet. As the plaintiffs approached the crossing, August Peterson, a boy 15 years old, and the son of the plaintiff Frank O. Peterson, was driving the latter's team of mules, which was attached to a lumber wagon, and the plaintiff Charles U. Peterson was driving his own team of horses, attached to a similar wagon, just behind the mile team, and Frank O. Peterson was riding with him. No one of these three persons was familiar with the topography of the land about this crossing, or knew of the cuts or curves to which we have referred. None of them was familiar with the highway, or had traveled over it more than three or four times. None of them knew where this railroad crossing was, though they knew there was such a crossing somewhere between St. Paul and White Bear. The teams...