Sealey v. Southern Ry. Co.

• Decision Date: 16 February 1907
• Docket Number: 666.
• Citation: 151 F. 736
• Parties: SEALEY v. SOUTHERN RY. CO. et al.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fourth Circuit

151 F. 736

SEALEY v. SOUTHERN RY. CO. et al.

No. 666.

United States Court of Appeals, Fourth Circuit.

February 16, 1907

This is an action at law instituted in the court of common pleas for York county, S.C., and subsequently removed to the federal court of that state, to recover of the defendants, the Southern Railway Company and D. G. McAllister, one of its locomotive engineers, damages arising from an injury sustained by the plaintiff, he having been struck by one of the company's trains in charge of the defendant McAllister, at its depot in the town of Rock Hill, S.C., on the 29th day of June, 1903. The facts are briefly that the plaintiff was, and had been for about three years, a shipping clerk of the Rock Hill Buggy Company, whose place of business was located on the western side of the tracks of the defendant company at Rock Hill; that the defendant company's freight depot was on the same side of its tracks, and its passenger, express, and telegraph offices on the eastern side of said tracks; that about 11 o'clock on the morning of the 29th of June, 1903, the plaintiff, having occasion in the line of his employment to consult the defendant company's depot agent relative to securing cars, went first to the freight depot to see him, and failing to find him there, proceeded in the usual manner of travel across the tracks over to the passenger station to look for him in the ticket office and baggage and express room, and, failing to find the agent, he started back to his place of employment, and while proceeding across the tracks he was struck by the defendant company's train, receiving the serious injuries for which this suit is brought to recover damages.

The defendant company's passenger depot sat back a few feet from the tracks, and had two flights of steps leading from the depot platform to the ground, fronting the tracks referred to in the evidence as the 'southern steps' and the 'northern steps,' the southern end of the platform being wider than that of the rear portion. The northern steps were something longer than the southern containing some seven or eight steps, and the bottoms of the two sets of steps each reached within six or eight feet from the tracks, leaving an open space between the depot and the tracks, and between the steps and the tracks, which, like the spaces between the tracks in front of said depot, were nicely graveled and ballasted, and along, upon, and over which the public habitually traveled, with the full knowledge, if not with the entire acquiescence, of the defendant company, in going from its passenger depot to the said freight depot on the opposite side, in a diagonal direction, or diagonally from the passenger depot to White street, to proceed thereon in a westerly direction. From either the northern or southern steps of the depot, or the space and walk way in front thereof, there was an unobstructed view of the tracks northward for some 250 to 300 yards. On the morning in question the passenger train from the north by which the plaintiff was injured was behind time. The testimony of the plaintiff is that upon leaving the express office to return to his place of business, and as he started down the northern steps, he looked for the delayed train due from the north; that he saw nothing of the same, and proceeded down the steps, and after getting down, and before going on the track, he again looked for the train, looking up the track where he could see some 300 yards, and, not seeing it, started across and down the track, and having proceeded a short distance, possibly some 30 feet, and after having made about two steps on the main line, 'there was a flash as though the sun had gone under a cloud, ' which was the first indication he had of the approaching train, and he wheeled on his left foot and started to move his right, when he was struck by a portion of the engine across the small of his back, and thrown on the pavement. Plaintiff further testified that after looking for the approach of the in-coming train, and as he proceeded across and down the tracks of the defendant company, his at tension was devoted to a shifting engine on the tracks on the opposite side, and in front of which he had to pass, and that he did not, after getting on the tracks, further look out for the incoming train.

Plaintiff insisted that he sustained the injury sued for by reason of the negligence of the defendant company in running its delayed train in front of said depot, where plaintiff and others might be expected to be, at a reckless and dangerous rate of speed, without giving any warning or signal of its approach, and because, also, the said train was being operated in violation of the ordinance limiting the speed to 10 miles an hour prescribed by the town of Rock Hill, and in violation of the statute of the state of South Carolina, in that it failed to properly sound its whistle at a distance of 500 yards...