Seaboard Air Line Ry. Co. v. Thompson
| Citation | 57 Fla. 155,48 So. 750 |
| Parties | SEABOARD AIR LINE RY. CO. v. THOMPSON. |
| Decision Date | 16 February 1909 |
| Court | United States State Supreme Court of Florida |
Error to Circuit Court, Baker County; James T. Wills, Judge.
Action by Joe Thompson, by his next friend, A. C. Budamire, against the Seaboard Air Line Railway Company. Judgment for plaintiff, and defendant brings error. Reversed.
Syllabus by the Court
The presumption of negligence cast upon railroads by our statute in personal injury cases ceases when the railroad company has made it appear that its agents have exercised all ordinary and reasonable care and diligence. In the presence of such proof by the railroad company, the jury do not take any such presumption with them to the jury room in weighing the evidence and in coming to a determination. The statute does not create such a presumption as will outweigh proofs, or that will require any greater or stronger or more convincing proofs to remove it. All that the statute does in creating the presumption is thereby to cast upon the railroad company the burden of affirmatively showing that its agents exercised all ordinary and reasonable care and diligence, and here the statutory presumption ends. And when, in a suit for personal injury, the railroad company proves affirmatively by undisputed and uncontradicted evidence that it and its agents exercised all ordinary and reasonable care and diligence, and were not guilty of the negligence alleged, the plaintiff has no right to recover.
COUNSEL Geo. P. Raney and William J. Owen, for plaintiff in error.
Kelley & Cone, for defendant in error.
The defendant in error, as plaintiff below, sued the plaintiff in error, as defendant below, in the circuit court of Baker county in an action for damages for personal injuries. The trial resulted in a verdict and judgment for $500, and this judgment the defendant below brings here for review by writ of error.
At the close of the evidence, the defendant moved the court for a peremptory charge to the jury to find for the defendant. This request was denied, and such ruling is assigned as error. This was error. The declaration in the case alleged that the plaintiff was a passenger on one of defendant's trains and that while he was such passenger the defendant did not use due and proper care that he should be safely carried, but wholly neglected so to do, and then and there carelessly and negligently permitted and suffered a defective window to remain and be in said car at the seat where the plaintiff was sitting on said train, and also allowed the defective window to be raised, and, while the said plaintiff was sitting in said car, the said window, being defective, as aforesaid fell on one of the plaintiff's hands with great force which said hand was caught in and under said window, and which said window thereby crushed, bruised, and mangled the said hand and fingers of the plaintiff, which caused him much pain and suffering, and caused him to have fever, and to become sick, sore, crippled, and disordered for about two months.
The only negligence alleged against the defendant was that it permitted a defective window to be and remain in...
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... ... asked him a number of questions along that line. He had just ... testified, in response to some of such questions, that, ... 'if a lean person ... In support of its contention, the ... plaintiff in error cites Southern R. Co. v ... Thompson, 129 Ga. 367, 58 S.E. 1044, and Central of ... Ga. R. Co. v. Weathers, 120 [59 Fla. 371] Ga ... Co. v. Crosby, 53 Fla. 400, 43 So. 318, and authorities ... there cited; Seaboard Air Line Ry. v. Thompson, 57 ... Fla. 155, 48 So. 750. It was primarily for the jury to ... ...
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