Pittsburgh v. Hazen

• Decision Date: 30 September 1876
• Parties: PITTSBURGH, FT. WAYNE AND CHICAGO R. R. CO. et al.v.CHESTER HAZEN.
• Court: Illinois Supreme Court

84 Ill. 36

1876 WL 10424 (Ill.)

25 Am.Rep. 422

PITTSBURGH, FT. WAYNE AND CHICAGO R. R. CO. et al.

v.CHESTER HAZEN.

Supreme Court of Illinois.

September Term, 1876.

APPEAL from the Superior Court of Cook county; the Hon. JOSIAH MCROBERTS, Judge, presiding.

Mr. F. H. WINSTON, Mr. GEORGE WILLARD, and Mr. B. C. COOK, for the appellants.

Mr. T. A. MORAN, for the appellee. Mr. JUSTICE DICKEY delivered the opinion of the Court:

On the 10th of December, 1870, Hazen shipped, by the freight line of the railway company, a quantity of cheese from Chicago to New York. The cheese was delivered to the consignees, at New York, on the 28th of December--eighteen days after the shipment. The proofs tended to show that the usual period of such transit, at that time, did not exceed twelve days; that the weather from the 10th to the 23d was not severely cold, but that severe cold occurred between the 23d and 28th, and that the cheese, when delivered in New York, was frozen, and thereby damaged to the amount of $1100.55, and for this amount was the verdict and judgment in favor of Hazen, from which the railway company appeals.

As an excuse for this delay beyond the usual period of such transit, the defendant, at the trial below, sought to prove that the sole cause of the delay was the obstruction of the passage of trains in the neighborhood of Leavitsburg, resulting from the irresistible violence of a large number of lawless men, acting in combination with brakemen, who, up to that time, had been employed by the railway company; that the brakemen refused to work, and were discharged, and other brakemen promptly employed, but the moving of trains was prevented by the threats and violence of a mob. This evidence was objected to by the plaintiff, and excluded by the court.

This, we think, was error. It is, doubtless, the law, that railway companies can not claim immunity from damages for injuries resulting in such cases from the misconduct of their employees, whether such misconduct be wilful or merely negligent. If employees of a common carrier suddenly refuse to work, and the carrier can not promptly supply their places with other employees, and injury results from the delay, the carrier is responsible;--such delay results from the fault of the employees. The evidence offered in this case, however, tends to prove that the delay was not the result of a want of suitable employees to conduct the trains, for the places of the “strikers” were, according to the...