St. Louis, I. M. & S. Ry. Co. v. Campbell

• Decision Date: 04 January 1915
• Docket Number: (No. 97.)
• Citation: 172 S.W. 823
• Parties: ST. LOUIS, I. M. & S. RY. CO. v. CAMPBELL et al.
• Court: Arkansas Supreme Court

172 S.W. 823

ST. LOUIS, I. M. & S. RY. CO. v. CAMPBELL et al.

(No. 97.)

Supreme Court of Arkansas.

January 4, 1915.

Appeal from Circuit Court, Lawrence County; W. A. Cunningham, Special Judge.

Separate actions by C. C. Campbell and nine others against the St. Louis, Iron Mountain & Southern Railway Company. From judgments for plaintiffs, defendant appeals. Reversed and remanded for new trial.

C. C. Campbell, appellee, and nine others, brought separate suits against the St. Louis, Iron Mountain & Southern Railway Company, appellant, for damages for loss of their cattle, alleged to have been caused by the negligence of the railroad company in transporting infected cattle from below the quarantine line, across it, and unloading them at Alicia, a point above the line, from which their cattle became infected with the fever and died. It appears from the testimony that a wreck occurred just below the quarantine line, and the door of the car containing the cattle was torn off, and one of them escaped from the car; that the others were taken on across the quarantine line and unloaded at Alicia, and the one that escaped was driven along the public road to the stock pen, from which they were all shipped within a day or two.

There was some testimony tending to show that the cattle had ticks upon them, but no witness was able to say they were fever ticks. About the usual time for the development of the fever from ticks after the car load of wrecked cattle was unloaded at Alicia, the cattle in the community began to get sick with fever and die, and the testimony shows that some of them were infested with fever ticks. The testimony further tends to show that Alicia, while above the quarantine line, was under quarantine in fact during all the year, except the season before for a few days, when the quarantine was lifted. There was testimony tending to show, however, that there had been no infection or fever among the cattle in and around Alicia for some years and since the establishment of the quarantine line. There was no testimony tending to show the point from which the car of cattle was shipped, further than one man said he had heard the roadmaster say they were Southern cattle, and this witness also testified that he thought they must be Southern cattle, or Texas cattle, because of the peculiar brands upon them.

The cases were consolidated upon the trial, and verdicts were rendered against the railroad company in each, in favor of the plaintiffs, for certain amounts, and judgment thereon. From the judgment, the railroad company prosecutes this appeal.

E. B. Kinsworthy and T. D. Crawford, both of Little Rock, and Campbell & Suits, of Newport, for appellant. W. P. Smith, of Walnut Ridge, for appellees.

KIRBY, J. (after stating the facts as above).

It is contended by appellant that it had no knowledge that the cattle necessarily unloaded and collected at Alicia, because of the wreck of the car in which they were being shipped, were infected with the fever, or carried the fever-producing tick, and that there is no evidence tending to show they were brought from infected territory, nor sufficient to sustain the verdict, and also that the court erred in giving instruction numbered 2 for plaintiff. In said instruction the court told the jury that if the railroad company had in charge a car of cattle from infected territory, which it caused or permitted to be unloaded at Alicia, and...