Pearce v. Humphreys

• Decision Date: 12 March 1888
• Parties: PEARCE v. HUMPHREYS et al.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Michigan

34 F. 282

PEARCE v. HUMPHREYS et al.

United States Circuit Court, E.D. Michigan.

March 12, 1888

(Syllabus by the Court.)

Plaintiff was driving a truck along a private way through defendant's yard, which was commonly used by teams in going to and from an elevator, and which crossed a large number of railway tracks. His view of the main track used by passenger trains was obstructed by a line of freight cars standing upon the next track, which had been opened at the crossing of the private way to form a passage for teams to cross the tracks. Plaintiff was about to cross the main track. He did not stop, but listened for the approach of trains. Hearing no signal, he attempted to cross, but was struck by an engine which had just left the passenger station, and was proceeding at a speed of 10 or 12 miles an hour. There was evidence that there was no signal given of its approach. Held, that the question respectively of the negligence of the plaintiff and defendants was properly submitted to the jury.¹ This was an action by Herbert Pearce, for personal injuries received in the yard of the Wabash Railway Company in Detroit, of which company the defendant Solon Humphreys and another were the receivers. Plaintiff was the driver of a pair of horses attached to a heavy truck, which he had driven into defendant's yard to deliver some tobacco at the freight depot. A surveyed plan of the yard produced in court shows it to be a parallelogram; upon the north side of which is Woodbridge street, the east side Twelfth street, and the south side the Detroit river. The freight depot at which the tobacco was delivered was in the south-easterly corner formed by Twelfth street and the river, and access to the depot is afforded by a driveway leading from Twelfth street along-side the freight house. The yard extends to the west some 2,000 feet, with some 20 tracks, and near the westerly end, and about 1,700 feet from the freight-house, there is an elevator, and a private way leading northerly from the elevator across the tracks to Woodbridge street, this way being nearly parallel with Twelfth street, and about 1,700 feet distant. Freight cars standing upon the tracks are opened at this private way, which was used solely for the convenience of persons doing business at the elevator, and was maintained by the elevator, and not by the railway. Plaintiff drove into the yard by the way of Twelfth street delivered his freight at the freight house, but instead of turning about and coming out by the way he came in, drove westward through the yard, parallel with the tracks, until he reached the private way running from the elevator northerly to Woodbridge street, when he turned northerly upon this road between the cars of a divided freight train, and, while passing across the main track, was struck by a locomotive coming down from the passenger station, which was also upon Twelfth street. He did not stop before crossing the track but listened as he approached it. The evidence tended to show that he could not have seen a train coming down from the station if he had stopped, by reason of the intervening line of freight cars.

Plaintiff recovered a verdict for $500, and motion was made for a new trial, upon the ground that the accident was the result of his own negligence. The case was argued before the circuit and district judges.

Israel T. Cowles and Isaac Marston, for plaintiff.

Alfred Russell, for defendants.

BROWN J., (after stating the facts as above.)

The testimony leaves no doubt in my mind that plaintiff was guilty of negligence in not returning to Woodbridge street by way of Twelfth street as he had entered. It was not only the proper and safer route, but it was actually shorter than the one he took; and if, in driving along parallel with the railroad tracks, and before reaching the private way to the elevator, he had met with an injury, I should have regarded his taking this route as contributing to the accident; but as he met with the injury after he had reached and taken the private way from the elevator, I do not feel at liberty to inquire how he came there. In other words, his negligence had ceased to operate before he crossed the track, and cannot therefore be considered as the proximate cause of the accident. Applying the rule laid down in Railroad Co. v Kellogg, 94 U.S. 469, it does not appear to me that the injury was the natural and probable consequence of this negligence or wrongful act or that it ought to have been foreseen in the light of the attending circumstances. From the moment he reached the private way and turned northward, he was as much entitled to be protected against the negligence of the company as if he had originally started from the elevator. The case of Daniels v. Ballantine, 23 Ohio St. 532, is an excellent illustration of this principle. In that case a tug which had taken a barge under an agreement to tow her from Saginaw to Buffalo, delayed unnecessarily in the St. Clair river. After resuming her voyage the barge was lost in Lake Erie. Although it was shown that if the tug had not delayed the loss would probably not have occurred, the court held that the deviation was not the proximate cause of loss, although it would have been otherwise, if the loss had occurred during the deviation. Other cases of a...