State v. Cumberland & P.R. Co.
| Decision Date | 10 February 1898 |
| Parties | STATE, to Use of PRICE et al., v. CUMBERLAND & P. R. CO. |
| Court | Maryland Court of Appeals |
Appeal from circuit court, Allegany county.
Action by the state of Maryland, for the use of Ellen M. Price and others, against the Cumberland & Pennsylvania Railroad Company, to recover for death of Thomas C. Price. Judgment for defendant. Plaintiff appeals. Affirmed.
Argued before MCSHERRY, C.J., and BRYAN, BRISCOE,PAGE, PEARCE, and BOYD, JJ.
Clayton Purnell and Ben A. Richmond, for appellant. Robert H. Gordon and Ferd. Williams, for appellee.
This is an action brought in the name of the state of Maryland, for the use of the widow and daughters of Dr. Thomas C. Price against the Cumberland & Pennsylvania Railroad Company founded on the alleged negligence of the company's agents, resulting in the death of the doctor. At the conclusion of the testimony offered by the plaintiff, the court below instructed the jury that there was no evidence legally sufficient to entitle the plaintiff to recover, and directed a verdict to be rendered for the defendant. That action of the court presents the only question for our review. There were only two witnesses to the accident examined, and their testimony is very unsatisfactory in reference to most of the material facts involved in the case. The accident happened at a point where a county road crosses the railroad on what is called a "Y" track. The railroad, in order to get to Frostburg by a practicable grade, runs westerly to a point near Borden Mines, and then easterly for some distance, and then westerly again towards Frostburg, thus gradually ascending the hill. The train with which we are concerned was composed of an engine and coal cars, and, after stopping at a coal tipple which is near the westerly terminus of the main track, was backing up the Y track, when the collision with Dr. Price's buggy took place on the crossing above spoken of. He had been to Allegany, a neighboring village, to see a patient, and was on his way to Frostburg, where he resided, when his buggy was struck by the train, and he died almost immediately after the accident. The witnesses who testified seem to have had no definite idea of the distance between the points spoken of in their testimony, or even the length of the train. There was a plat used at the argument, which, although not shown in the record to have been proven to be correct, we understand to have been conceded to be so in this court. Assuming it to have been correctly made according to the scale marked on it, the distance from the coal tipple to the point where the Y track leaves the main track is about 400 feet, and from the latter point to the county road about 600 feet. The witnesses who saw the accident were Mrs. Frank Devore and Joseph Malooley. It is impossible to tell from the record with any precision where the former was, as the points she speaks of are not located on the plat, but she said she was on what we have called the "main track," by which we mean the part of the track before entering the Y, and that is from three to four hundred feet from the county road at the nearest points, as laid down on the plat. Malooley was on the car that struck Dr. Price's buggy, being the rear car of the train, or, as it was being pushed backward up the grade, the first car to reach the crossing. Mrs. Devore thought the accident happened about 6 o'clock in the evening, October 26, 1896, but she said she could see the train and Dr. Price plainly. She described with some detail what occurred at the crossing, even to the number of times the doctor struck his horse. So, whatever the hour was, it was still sufficiently light for any one to see the train moving. As Dr. Price reached the railroad, his horse balked and remained on the track long enough to let the buggy in which he was riding be caught by the train, although the horse escaped.
Suits for damages resulting from collisions with railroad trains by persons crossing the tracks have been so numerous in this state that there is no longer much difficulty about the general principles of law applicable to them, and it is usually only necessary to examine carefully and critically the facts in any particular case to ascertain the extent of the liability of the defendant. Our statute which authorizes suits to be brought for the death of a person caused by the wrongful act, neglect, or default of another limits the right of recovery to such act, neglect, or default as would, if death had not ensued, have entitled the party injured to maintain an action and recover damages in respect thereof, and hence the test in this case is whether Dr. Price could have recovered if he had survived the injuries sustained by him. To do so, it would have been incumbent on him to prove that the action was caused entirely by the negligence or default of the defendant's agents or agent, and it must not have appeared from the evidence that his want of ordinary care and prudence directly contributed to cause the accident. Burns' Case, 54 Md. 113. To put the company on defense, it was not sufficient to prove negligence of its agents, but also that such negligence caused the injury. If, in attempting to prove those essentials, the evidence disclosed the fact that the accident really happened as a result of the doctor's own negligence, then the plaintiff is precluded from recovery, because the defendant cannot be made responsible for results caused by the fault of the one whose injuries are the basis of the suit. So long as there is any reasonable doubt on that question, the jury must resolve it; but when the fact is so clearly established by the evidence as to leave no room for rational minds to differ, without entering into the realms of speculation and conjecture, then it is the duty of the court to determine it. The legal sufficiency of the whole evidence to sustain a verdict is as clearly for the court as is the weight or credibility of the testimony for the jury when the facts are in dispute. Of course, when the court is called upon to pass upon the legal sufficiency of the evidence, it must assume it to be true. These general propositions have been so frequently announced by this court that we deem it unnecessary to cite authorities to sustain them, and we only refer to them because it is proper that they should be borne in mind as the facts in the record are considered and the law applied.
The negligence relied on by the plaintiff consists of the alleged failure of the defendant's agents to give any signal of the approach of the train. Mrs. Devore swore she did not hear the whistle blow or the bell ring, although she was close enough to have heard them. It is true that she did not notice that there was another train on the main track, the engine of which did whistle, according to the...
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