Seaboard Air Line Ry. Co. v. Myrick

• Decision Date: 14 May 1926
• Citation: 91 Fla. 918,109 So. 193
• Parties: SEABOARD AIR LINE RY. CO. v. MYRICK.
• Court: Florida Supreme Court

109 So. 193

91 Fla. 918

SEABOARD AIR LINE RY. CO. v. MYRICK.

Florida Supreme Court, Division A.

May 14, 1926

Error to Circuit Court, Leon County; E. C. Love, Judge.

Action by H. J. Myrick against the Seaboard Air Line Railway Company for personal injuries and for the destruction of an automobile. Judgment for plaintiff, and defendant brings error.

Reversed.

(Syllabus by the Court.)

COUNSEL

W. J. Oven, of Tallahassee, for plaintiff in error.

W. C. Hodges and Fred H. Davis, both of Tallahassee, for defendant in error.

OPINION

ELLIS J.

The defendant in error, who lives in Thomasville, Ga., and has a savmill business at Woodville, Fla., was making a trip in his automobile in June, 1922, from Woodville to Tallahassee, a distance of about nine miles. At the point where the railroad crosses the public road, the defendant encountered a train of the railroad company en route from Tallahassee to Covington. The crossing is about three miles from Tallahassee, by way of the public road, and about six miles from Woodville.

As a result of the collision, the defendant in error sustained some physical injuries which are not specifically described in the declaration, nor, as for that matter, in the evidence and suffered the loss of his automobile, which Myrick, the plaintiff below, said was completely destroyed.

An action was brought by Myrick against the railroad for damages for personal injuries and for the destruction of the automobile.

The railroad pleaded not guilty; denied that the plaintiff was lawfully operating the automobile on the public highway in making the journey from Woodville to Tallahassee; averred that the plaintiff carelessly drove the automobile at high speed upon the railroad crossing in front of the approaching train without making any effort to ascertain whether the train was approaching, notwithstanding he knew of the defendant's use of the railroad track over the crossing and that the plaintiff, when approaching the crossing, made no effort to ascertain whether the defendant's train was approaching or about to cross the highway.

The plaintiff joined issue upon these pleas. There was a trial and verdict for the plaintiff in the sum of $2,000.

The railroad company seeks to reverse the judgment here on writ of error.

The assignments of error attack the sufficiency of the evidence to sustain the verdict and the correctness of certain charges given by the court to the jury.

The declaration rests upon the allegations that the defendant company 'negligently and carelessly manipulated, ran operated, and managed its certain locomotive and train of cars' over its railroad at the point where the accident occurred when it occurred; that the locomotive struck the plaintiff's automobile, in which he was riding; and that the plaintiff was injured, and the automobile was ruined.

The pleas interposed were, in substance, a denial of the defendant's negligence in operating its locomotive and train of cars; a denial that the plaintiff was lawfully operating his automobile upon the public highway at the time of the accident; an averment that the plaintiff's injury resulted from his own carelessness in driving his automobile upon the defendant's track in front of the approaching train, and that he was guilty of contributory negligence in driving upon the defendant's track without taking any precautions to ascertain whether a train was approaching.

The evidence was sufficient to warrant the finding that the defendant's locomotive struck the plaintiff's automobile in which he was riding, destroying the automobile and injuring the plaintiff. The injuries he sustained were painful, but not serious, according to the evidence of the physician. Under the issue of not guilty, the injury being shown to have been committed by the defendant in the running of its train, the presumption that it was through the negligence of the railroad that the injury was inflicted obtains against the defendant railroad, but such presumption does not outweigh proofs, and it ceases when the company makes it to appear that its agents have exercised all ordinary and reasonable care and diligence. See section 4964, Revised General Statutes; Atlantic Coast Line R. Co. v. Crosby, 53 Fla. 400, 43 So. 318; Jones v. Jacksonville Electric Co., 56 Fla. 452, 47 So. 1; Seaboard Air Line R. Co. v. Thompson, 57 Fla. 155, 48 So. 750; Seaboard Air Line Ry. v. Mosely, 60 Fla. 186, 53 So. 718; Florida East Coast R. Co. v. Welch, 53 Fla. 145, 44 So. 250, 12 Ann. Cas. 210; Seaboard Air Line Ry. v. Smith, 53 Fla. 375, 43 So. 235; Johnson v. Louisville & N. R. Co., 59 Fla. 305, 52 So. 195.

As the learned judge who tried the case charged the jury, the rights and obligations of a railroad company and travelers on a public highway are reciprocal at the crossing of a railroad and public highway, but the railroad company's trains have the right of way, and all persons on the highway should give precedence to the passing trains of the railroad company at the crossings. It is therefore as much the duty of a person traveling upon the public highway, who is about to cross a railroad track, to use ordinary care and prudence to ascertain if a train is approaching upon the railroad track as it is the duty of the railroad company to warn, by appropriate signals, all persons who may be upon the public highway of the approach of a train about to cross the public highway. The statute merely places upon the railroad company the burden of showing affirmatively that such warnings were given whenever an action for damages for personal injuries or injuries to property grows out of a collision between a train of the railroad company and a traveler on the public highway at a crossing. Seaboard Air Line Ry. v. Smith, supra.

In the case above cited, Mr. Justice Hocker, speaking for the court, said:

'It must not be forgotten that a railroad company has not only a right to operate its trains, but it is its duty to operate them, and, while it should always observe reasonable precautions to prevent injury, it is not to be required to observe unreasonable ones.' That 'the duty of a railroad company in operating its trains is always conditioned by the exigencies of any particular situation, and to be ascertained from them, and this is true, independent of the statutory provisions.'

If the question of whether the railroad company has failed to observe ordinary precaution when one of its trains approaches a public crossing, and whether such failure is the proximate cause of any injury that may occur to a traveler upon the...