Patterson v. Dir. Gen. Of R.R.S
| Decision Date | 31 January 1921 |
| Docket Number | (No. 10567.) |
| Citation | 105 S.E. 746 |
| Parties | PATTERSON. v. DIRECTOR GENERAL OF RAILROADS. |
| Court | South Carolina Supreme Court |
Appeal from Common Pleas Circuit Court of Richland County; Ernest Moore, Judge.
Action by W. A. Patterson against the Director General of Railroads. Judgment of nonsuit, and plaintiff appeals. Affirmed.
E. J. Best and E. W. Mullins, both of Collumbia, for appellant.
Frank G. Tompkins, of Columbia, for respondent.
HYDRICK, J. Plaintiff appeals from a judgment of nonsuit. He sued under the federal Employers' Liability Act (U. S. Comp. St. §§ 8657-8665) to recover damages for personal injuries received by him on November 22, 1918, while employed in the service of defendant as a yard conductor at Spartanburg, S. C. He alleged that at the time of his injury he was engaged in interstate commerce, and that the injury was caused by the negligence of defendant in furnishing him a defective engine and in running an interstate passenger train in the yard at a dangerous rate of speed, in violation of one defendant's rules and an ordinance of the city, both of which forbade the running of trains in the yard at a speed of more than 10 miles an hour.
Defendant's answer admitted plaintiff's employment as a yard conductor and his injury, but denied that he was engaged in interstate commerce, when injured, and denied the allegations of negligence and consequent liability, and set up the defenses of assumption of risk and contributory negligence, alleging that plaintiff knew the defective condition of the engine and the dangers incident to its operation, and assumed the risk of injury thereby; also that plaintiff's own negligence or contributory negligence caused the injury, because, although plaintiff was not an engineer and did not understand the mechanism and operation of an engine, and was forbidden by defendant's rules to run or attempt to run an engine, nevertheless, without authority of defendant and in violation of the rules, he attempted to operate the engine, and thereby caused the collision which resulted in his injury.
The engine had a leaky throttle, so that steam would escape from the boiler into the cylinders, when the throttle was closed, and cause the engine to move—forward or backward, as the lever was left in forward or backward gear—after it had stood long enough for sufficient steam to escape into the cylinders. But such movement was preventable either by leaving the lever "on center" or by setting the brakes. The engine had been in this condition for some months, and plaintiff had seen it move on that account several times—once a few months and again a few weeks before he was hurt.
The accident happened in this way: Plaintiff had been operating the engine in shifting cars about the yard, and had stopped on a side track to let a through passenger train, known as No. 48, go by on the main line. He stopped the engine, left the lever in forward gear, and was about to get off, when his switchman called to him: "Look out; 48 is coming; you are not clear." Plaintiff saw at a glance that the engine was slowly moving forward toward the main line. He caught the lever and tried to reverse it, but could not move the lever. The engineers testified that when steam has escaped into the cylinders through a leaky throttle, it is very difficult to pull the reverse lever back, when it is in forward gear. Plaintiff said that, when he found it hard to move, he put his foot against the boiler and made a lunge at it, and, just as he did so, there was a blow (from the collision with No. 48), and he was knocked down and unconscious for a few minutes. The engineer, who was sitting there all the while, jumped off just before the collision, and the engine, having been reversed, ran wild for about two miles across the city to East Spartanburg, where plaintiff was taken off, his right leg having been caught under the apron and crushed so that it had to be cut off. Plaintiff testified that No. 48 came into the yard at a speed of 30 or 35 miles an hour, in violation of the rule and city ordinance referred to in his complaint. But he said the engine and tender of No. 48 had passed the junction of the side track with the main line, so that his engine collided with the first or second car in that train.
Plaintiff was an experienced railroad man, having been in the service about 23 years, and having been a yard conductor several years, though the exact length of that service is not stated. He testified that he was not an engineer, and it would have taken him 3 years to learn to be one, and that he knew nothing about an engine, except how to runone when it was working all right; that, under the rules, it was the sole duty of the engineer to run the engine, and no one else was authorized to run it; that he was running it by permission of the engineer, who was sitting in the cab with him; that the engineer would have run it, if he had requested him to do so; that he had frequently run the engine, while operating in the yards, but knew of only one other conductor who had ever attempted to run an engine, and that was only for a short distance, and he could not say whether any official of the road knew of his or the other conductor's violation of the rules. Two of plaintiff's witnesses, who were engineers, testified that, under the rules, a conductor has no business running an engine, and that they would not allow one to run their engines, though they had known of yard conductors making short movements of the engine, under the supervision of the engineer.
On defendant's motion, the trial court granted a nonsuit on four grounds: (1) That the evidence is susceptible of but one reasonable inference, viz. that plaintiff knew of the defective condition of the engine and the danger incident to his operating it, and assumed the risk of injury in so doing; (2) that he was guilty of such negligence in operating it under the circumstances, and in violation of the defendant's rules as to bar his recovery; (3) that the evidence falls to show that he was engaged in interstate commerce at the time of his injury; and (4) that there was no evidence tending to show that defendant was guilty of any negligence which had a causal connection with plaintiff's injury.
While the nonsuit was granted on all the grounds stated, the decision was rested chiefly upon the first ground. At least that was the ground chiefly discussed by the court in its remarks upon the motion. Plaintiff's...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
Riley v. Wabash Ry. Co.
...negligence and assumption of risk. Erie Railroad Co. v. Lindquist, 27 Fed. (2d) 98; Reeves v. Ry. Co., 179 N.W. 689; Patterson v. Director General, 105 S.E. 746; Boghich v. Railroad Co., 26 Fed. (2d) 361. (4) The defendant was not liable to plaintiff under the Boiler Inspection Act unless t......
-
Edwards v. Atl. Coast Line R. Co
...train as it approached the crossing in motion they hardly would have committed suicide by not stopping. In Patterson v. Railroad Co., 115 S. C. 390, 105 S. E. 746, the court held that the plaintiff's violation of the railroad company's rule forbidding him to run a defective engine was a pro......
-
Atlantic Coast Line Co v. Driggers
...but he, as the result of his own action, was thrown against the side of the engine as it was passing. See Patterson v. Director General of Railroads, 115 S. C. 390, 396, 105 S. E. 746. The contention that his death was caused by the negligence of the Railroad Company in any respect in which......
- Poliakoff v. American Ry. Express Co.