Richmond Co v. Powers
Decision Date | 17 April 1893 |
Docket Number | No. 200,200 |
Parties | RICHMOND & D. R. CO. v. POWERS et al |
Court | U.S. Supreme Court |
Action in the city court of Atlanta, Ga., by Maggie L. Powers, Homer W. Powers, and Lula W. Powers, by their next friend and guardian ad litem, C. F. Reed, against the Richmond & Danville Railroad Company, to recover for the death of plaintiffs' father, caused by defendant's negligence. Defendant removed the cause to a federal court, where verdict and judgment were given for plaintiffs. Defendant brings error. Affirmed.
Statement by Mr. Justice BREWER:
On April 11, 1886, W. D. Powers was run over by a train belonging to the Richmond & Danville Railroad Company, at a station known as 'Lula,' and so injured that he died in a few hours. This action was brought to recover damages therefor. The plaintiffs are his children, and the proper parties, under the Georgia statutes, to maintain the action. It was commenced in the city court of Atlanta, Ga., and thence removed by the defendant to the circuit court of the United States for the northern district of Georgia. A trial was had in November, 1888, which resulted in a verdict and judgment in favor of the plaintiffs for $9,800. On the trial the defendant asked the following instruction:
'The undisputed fact exists in this case that the deceased man, Powers, being at the time about forty-five years of age, and, so far as the evidence discloses, in full possession of all his faculties, deliberately stepped upon the railroad track immediately in front of an engine which was running towards him at the rate of five or six miles an hour, and not more than ten feet off, and was almost instantly run over and killed.
The instruction was refused, and exception duly taken.
Henry Jackson and Pope Barrow, for plaintiff in error.
Hoke Smith, for defendants in error.
Mr. Justice BREWER, after stating the facts in the foregoing language, delivered the opinion of the court.
The only error assigned is in the refusal of the court to instruct the jury, as requested, substantially, that the deceased was guilty of such contributory negligence as to prevent a recovery. It is well settled that, where there is uncertainty as to the existence of either negligence or contributory negligence, the question is not one of law, but of fact, and to be settled by a jury; and this whether the uncertainty arises from a conflict in the testimony, or because, the facts being undisputed, fair-minded men will honestly draw different conclusions from them. Railroad Co. v. Stout, 17 Wall. 657; Railroad Co. v. McDade, 135 U. S. 554, 10 Sup. Ct. Rep. 1044; Railroad Co. v. Converse, 139 U. S. 469, 11 Sup. Ct. Rep. 569.
No objection is made to the instructions which were given, no suggestion that the law as to negligence and contributory negligence was not properly stated to the jury; so we have the question whether the facts, as developed by the testimony, were such as to compel a declaration, as a...
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