Southern Ry. Co. v. Stutts

• Decision Date: 06 April 1906
• Docket Number: 1,515.
• Citation: 144 F. 948
• Parties: SOUTHERN RY. CO. v. STUTTS
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit

144 F. 948

SOUTHERN RY. CO. v. STUTTS

No. 1,515.

United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit.

April 6, 1906

The following is the charge to the jury of Shelby, Circuit Judge:

This is a suit brought by the plaintiff against the defendant for damages for the wrongful and negligent killing of William J Stutts. The plaintiff alleges that Stutts came to his death by wrongful and negligent acts of the defendant, which are stated in the complaint which has been read to you. The defendant pleads 'not guilty,' and that the negligence of the decedent contributed as a proximate cause of his death.

The issue of fact which must be submitted to the jury involve two questions. One as to the alleged negligence of the defendant railway company; and the other as to the alleged contributory negligence of the deceased, William J. Stutts. Negligence is the failure to do what reasonable and prudent persons would ordinarily have done under the circumstances of the situation, or the doing what reasonable and prudent persons under the circumstances would not have done. To sustain the averments of the complaint, the burden of proof in the first instance is on the plaintiff. If the jury find from the evidence that the defendant's servants and agents in charge of a train of its cars permitted the train to get from under their control on a grade so steep that gravity caused it to descent with great force on the track and to strike and drive other cars standing on the track past the end of the track to a place where or near which the defendant's agents and servants knew or had good reason to know, that the decedent, William J. Stutts, and others, were located with vehicles to receive passengers, and that one or more of the cars so driven killed plaintiff's intestate, the jury might infer negligence on the part of the railway company from these facts.

If the jury find from the evidence that the switch on the track was so closed that the approaching train could not have run down on the east track where the accident occurred, and that the yard conductor, Stewart, changed the switch so as to turn the train on that track, the jury will consider all the evidence and circumstances of the case to determine whether such action of Stewart was that of an ordinarily prudent and cautious person; and if you determine that such action was not such as an ordinarily prudent and careful man would have done, under all the circumstances, you are authorized to infer negligence on the part of the defendant from such act. If the jury find under these instructions that the defendant company was guilty of negligence which was the proximate cause of William J. Stutts' death, your verdict should be for the plaintiff, unless the defendant has proved its plea of contributory negligence.

The burden of proving that the deceased was guilty of contributory negligence is on the defendant. In considering the question of the deceased's alleged contributory negligence, the jury will examine and consider all the facts and circumstances surrounding the deceased at the time of the accident. If the deceased failed to do what a reasonable and prudent person under existing circumstances would ordinarily have done, or if he did what a reasonable and prudent person under the existing circumstances would not have done, and if his negligent act or his negligent failure to...