Sullivan v. Vicksburg, Shreveport and Pacific Railroad Company

• Decision Date: 01 June 1887
• Docket Number: 1165
• Citation: 39 La.Ann. 800,2 So. 586
• Court: Louisiana Supreme Court
• Parties: E. A. SULLIVAN v. VICKSBURG, SHREVEPORT AND PACIFIC RAILROAD COMPANY

2 So. 586

39 La.Ann. 800

E. A. SULLIVAN v. VICKSBURG, SHREVEPORT AND PACIFIC RAILROAD COMPANY

No. 1165

Supreme Court of Louisiana

June 1, 1887

APPEAL from the Fifth District Court, Parish of Ouachita. Richardson, J.

C. J. &amp J. S. Boatner, for Plaintiff and Appellant.

Stubbs & Russell, for Defendant and Appellee.

OPINION

FENNER J.

At Waverly station the defendant company's main track is situated at some distance from its depot building, and between the two runs a side-track. Between the two tracks defendant had constructed a plank-walk for platform slightly elevated above the tracks, and running for some distance beyond the depot front. Its object was to furnish a convenient landing-place for passengers getting on or off its cars.

It consisted of three parallel planks, and was from three to four feet wide. Between the edge of the walks and the main track there was a space of between 12 and 18 inches, and inasmuch as an ordinary box or passenger car projects over the track about 22 to 24 inches, it follows that it would, in passing, project about 6 to 8 inches over the walk. Like conditions existed with reference to the side-track.

On December 31 plaintiff had gone to the station to meet some families of laborers who arrived on the passenger train.

Shortly afterward he observed that some children of the party were on the main track, and noticing that another train was approaching, he walked up this plank-walk to make them get off the track.

After doing so he proceeded on the same walk towards the wagons which were to receive the laborers, going in the same direction in which the approaching train was coming, and with his back toward it. As it neared him he moved from the edge to the middle of the walk, and then, considering himself in safety, paid no more attention to it. Any ordinary car would have passed without touching him; but it chanced that this was a construction train running with its engine in the rear, and composed of flat cars for loading and unloading dirt, with a centre-piece down their middle as a guide for an unloading plow which passed along the whole train propelled by a wire-rope attached to the locomotive. This arrangement necessitated the placing of the brakes on the side, instead of at the ends of the several cars, as is usual. Hence, the wheels of the brakes projected some fourteen inches beyond the edge of the car, and being about the height of plaintiff's ear, the wheel struck him as the cars passed, inflicting the injuries for which the present suit in damages is brought.

We think the defendant is clearly liable. The plank-walk was built for the accommodation of passengers and the public, and the latter were invited to use it. Plaintiff was properly on the walk, and had the right to suppose that he was in safety there. Conceding that his eye might have informed him that the edge of the walk was too near the track to permit the passage of cars of ordinary width without projecting over it yet he availed himself of this information, and occupied the middle plank, where he would have been safe from any ordinary train. It happened that there were some stationary box-cars on the side-track which projected over the opposite edge of the walk, and, if he had tried, he could not have moved much further away, though if he had moved a little farther, he would have escaped, as his companion did. Still, in occupying the middle plank, he passed beyond the reach of any ordinary car, and certainly had the right to suppose himself in absolute safety, as he would have been but for this unusual system of...