State v. Reynolds

• Decision Date: 05 July 1919
• Docket Number: No. 21331.,21331.
• Citation: 214 S.W. 121
• Parties: STATE ex rel. PETERS v. REYNOLDS et al., Judges.
• Court: Missouri Supreme Court

214 S.W. 121

STATE ex rel. PETERS v. REYNOLDS et al., Judges.

No. 21331.

Supreme Court of Missouri, Division No. 2.

July 5, 1919.

Certiorari proceedings by the State of Missouri, on the relation of Martin C. Peters, administrator of the estate of William O. Peters deceased, against Hon. George D. Reynolds and others, Judges. Writ quashed.

Blodgett & Rector, of St. Louis, for relator. W. F. Evans, E. T. Miller, and A. P. Stewart, all of St. Louis, for respondents.

WHITE, C.

This is an action in which relator seeks by certiorari to review the decision of the St. Louis Court of Appeals and quash the judgment of said court in the case of Martin C. Peters, Administrator of the Estate of William 0. Peters, Respondent, v. James W. Lusk, et al., Receivers of the St. Louis & San Francisco Railroad Company, Appellants.

William O. Peters was run upon and killed at Valley Park, Mo., by a passenger train operated on the St. Louis & San Francisco Railroad track, while said property was in charge of the receivers. His administrator recovered judgment in the circuit court of the city of St. Louis in the sum of $3,500. The case was appealed to the St. Louis Court of Appeals, where on the first hearing the judgment was affirmed on condition that the plaintiff remit $1,500. Afterwards a motion for rehearing filed by appellants in said court was sustained, and a second opinion delivered, in which the judgment of the circuit court was reversed. It is this second opinion and judgment of said court which it is sought by this proceeding to quash.

It was held by the St. Louis Court of Appeals that the defendant was negligent in operating the train by which Peters was killed, but that Peters himself was guilty of such negligence contributing to his death that his administrator ought not to recover. The question of the defendant's negligence being eliminated, there is presented here for consideration only the question of the alleged contributory negligence and the announcement of the law in respect thereto by the St. Louis Court of Appeals, in which, it is alleged in the petition for the writ of certiorari, the said court has failed to follow the law as laid down in numerous decisions of this court.

The opinion of the St. Louis Court of Appeals in the case is reported in 206 S. W. 250, where a complete statement of the facts and the reasons for the judgment are set forth. For convenience we quote from the opinion such facts as are pertinent to the issue presented here.

"The St. Louis & San Francisco Railroad Company maintained a depot at Valley Park. The depot which was then in use was situated on the north side of their tracks, while on the south side of the tracks there was in the course of erection a new station building located nearly opposite the old depot. The space between these two station buildings is referred to as a `cinder plateau.' From the south there is a street which runs up to the new depot building almost parallel with the west line thereof. This street turns abruptly at the new station, and runs west parallel with the Frisco tracks for a distance of 100 yards or more, and then turns north, crossing the tracks. From the point where this street thus turns to the north a cinder path extended north to the tracks, passing near to and west of the new station. Tickets could only be bought at the old station, so that one coming from the south had to walk along the cinder path and then cross the cinder plateau traversed by defendants' tracks in order to reach the old station."

Peters went to the station at Valley Park for the purpose of taking a train for St. Louis. The facts in relation to that are thus stated by the Court of Appeals:

"It may be inferred from the record that the deceased had expected to take this local train to St. Louis, and had proceeded from that part of the town which lies south of the tracks north along the street and cinder path above mentioned to the station grounds, and that he was struck near and perhaps a little distance west of the new station while attempting to cross the main tracks in order to reach the station or platform on the north side. His body was found lying 6 or 8 feet north of the track on which the express was operated, and near a mail crane said to be situated about 15 or 20 yards west of the new station."

The opinion then goes on to show that the train from St. Louis approached at a high rate of speed, but that its headlight shone down the track brilliantly, so that the coming of the train was plainly discernible anywhere from 200 yards to a quarter of a mile away. As to the demeanor of the deceased as the train approached, the court further elucidates the facts, and concludes as follows:

"Thus Peters, the deceased, according to the testimony of his own witnesses, was seen standing at the southwest corner of the new building at the same time when these same witnesses who saw him testified they saw the rays from the electric pilot light of the engine shining between the old depot and the new station house. Considering only the testimony favorable to plaintiff, what Peters did from that moment on until he met his death a few second later we do not know. Certain it is, however, that in that brief interval he got upon the main tracks of the railroad. To have done so, the deceased must in some manner have passed through the open space from the north line of the new station house to the south rail of the main track (a distance of 15 to 20 feet) before he came into actual danger, and yet while traversing that distance, by the most casual glance to the east, if the testimony of his own witnesses is to be believed, he could have seen the rays of light from the headlight of the approaching locomotive streaming down the tracks and between the two depots, and each step that he took which brought him closer to the nearest rail of the main tracks also brought within his view the tracks to the east for a greater distance."

The court then reaches this conclusion:

"We must rule that, even though the deceased was an invitee and upon station grounds, it was nevertheless, under all the facts and circumstances in this case, the duty of the deceased to look for an approaching train after he got into the clearing between the two station buildings and before passing onto the main track. And as was said in the case of Vandeventer v. Railroad (Sup.) 177 S. W. 834 (a case much similar to the one before us, in that the deceased was killed on station grounds, though that point was not raised in the case): `That which he (the deceased) could have learn", ed by the exercise of ordinary care under such circumstances will be imputed to him as a known fact.' Viewing the facts as disclosed by this record as we do, the deceased, at the time and place of the accident, was guilty of negligence directly contributing to his death."

I. Under its latest rulings this court is not to determine whether the St. Louis Court of Appeals erred in its application of rules of law to the facts in the record before it, but only whether in announcing the law of the case upon the facts as stated in its opinion it failed to follow the last previous ruling of this court. Majestic Mfg. Co. v. Reynolds et al., 186 S. W. 1072; State ex rel. v. Sturgis, 208 S. W. 458, loc. cit. 462; State ex rel. v. Robertson, 264 Mo. 671, 672, 175 S. W. 610. In order that the record of a Court of Appeals in a given case may be quashed by this court on certiorari, the opinion in such case must have announced some general principle of law contrary to the latest announcement of this court upon the subject, or on a given state of facts must have announced and applied some conclusion of law contrary to a conclusion of this court on a similar state of facts.

Relator has not cited any decision of this court where a general rule of law has been announced contrary to anything announced in the opinion. Numerous cases are cited to the effect that when the facts are disputed, or when undisputed facts admit of different constructions, that is, when reasonable minds might differ as to an inference to be drawn from undisputed facts, a question for the jury is presented. Mauerman v....