Riley v. Conn. R. R. Co.

• Decision Date: 19 September 1883
• Citation: 135 Mass. 292
• Parties: Elizabeth Riley, administratrix, v. Connecticut River Railroad Company
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

135 Mass. 292

Elizabeth Riley, administratrix, v. Connecticut River Railroad Company

Supreme Court of Massachusetts

September 19, 1883

Hampshire. Tort, by the administratrix of the estate of John Riley, for personal injuries sustained by her intestate in his lifetime, while a brakeman upon a freight train of the defendant corporation. The declaration alleged that the injuries were caused by the intestate coming in contact with a bridge, which he was required to pass while in the discharge of his duties, and which was negligently maintained by the defendant. Trial in the Superior Court, before Rockwell, J., who reported the case for the determination of this court, in substance as follows:

The plaintiff offered to prove that the accident which caused the intestate's death occurred at about eleven o'clock in the morning of July 29, 1881, at or near a bridge which crossed the defendant's railroad at Bernardston, and that he died the same day; that he had been in the defendant's employ about six weeks prior to the time of the accident that, at the time of the accident, the train was running in a northerly direction, at the rate of fifteen miles an hour that the intestate was on the train in the regular discharge of his duties; that the train consisted of twelve or fifteen cars, the first of which, next to the tender of the engine was a close or box car, and next to said box car in the rear was a platform car without sides; that the intestate was last seen alive within about a quarter of a mile southerly of said bridge, at which time he left the tender of the locomotive and got upon the box car which was next in the rear of said tender, and was standing on the box car in the regular discharge of his duties; that he was next seen dead on the track, about one hundred rods on the northerly side of the bridge, after the train had passed it, and when found the body was so mutilated that it could be recognized only by the clothing; that there was no blood on the track within about sixty rods north of the bridge, but, for the distance of about forty rods farther to the north, to the place where the body was found, there was blood on the track; that there was blood on the trucks of the platform car; that after the body of the intestate was found, his watch was found on the platform car, and his watch-chain, knife and bunch of keys were found scattered on the track from sixty to one hundred rods north of the bridge;...