The Pennsylvania Railroad Company v. Zebe et Ux.

• Decision Date: 01 January 1859
• Citation: 33 Pa. 318
• Parties: The Pennsylvania Railroad Company v. Zebe et ux.
• Court: Pennsylvania Supreme Court

Page 318

33 Pa. 318

The Pennsylvania Railroad Company v. Zebe et ux.

Supreme Court of Pennsylvania.

ERROR to the District Court of Westmoreland county.

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W. A. Stokes, for the plaintiff in error.

Cowan, for the defendants in error.

The opinion of the court was delivered by THOMPSON, J.

This was an action, brought by defendants in error and plaintiffs below, against the railroad company, for negligently causing the death of their son, whom, with his father, they had conveyed in their cars from Irwin's Station, in Westmoreland county, to Brinton's Station, in Allegheny county, where he was killed on the track of the company's road by being run over by the train going east. The gravamen of the charge in the plaintiff's narr. is, that "the company did not use due care, diligence, and skill in allowing the said Peter Zebe time and opportunity to get off and away from the said cars when they arrived at Brinton's Station, but on the contrary, immediately on the arrival at said station, and before the said Peter had time to get away from the said cars, the said company carelessly and negligently caused an engine or locomotive to be run alongside of the said cars, which said Peter was attempting to leave, so that the said engine or locomotive caught the said Peter," and passing over him, he was killed.

The case involved questions of negligence on the part of the company as to proper conveniences for the exit of passengers from the train, and also on part of the plaintiff and the deceased in the act of leaving the cars; and also whether the accident occurred before or after the relation of carrier and passenger had ceased or not.

There seems to have been no controversy about two facts in the case: — 1. That the company had a convenient platform at the station, for passengers to leave the cars upon, going west: 2. That the deceased and his father, instead of leaving the car by passing on to the platform, left it on the other side, which brought them immediately, on reaching the ground, on the other or southern track of the road, where the boy was killed.

The plaintiff in error complains that several points put by them, calculated and intended to present their views on the question of their liability, were not sufficiently answered by the court, so as to give the advantage and benefits which they claim the law would give them under the facts in the case. The first assignment of error is, that the court did not distinctly and explicitly answer their first point.

It cannot be denied, after the many decisions upon the question, that an omission or refusal to answer a point put by a party, relevant and material to the issue, is error: 1 S. & R. 449; 2 Id. 298; 6 W. & S. 58; 3 Penn. R. 318, and in Hood v. Hood, decided at this term, wherein the doctrine is elaborately examined. The law of the courts requires points put, to be substantially answered, 3 Barr 244, provided always, that they are relevant, and not unconnected with the facts in the case: 12 Harris 72. There have been many cases in which answers have been condemned for want of sufficient perspicuity or conciseness, and this shows the importance of preserving the rule that requires of the judge full and substantial answers to the points. In fact, the importance of the rule cannot be over-estimated, when we regard our short and simple pleading, which rarely brings the law of the case on the record. The only method, in most cases, a party has left to bring before the court, and from thence to this court for review, a proposition of law, is by presenting it as a point to be charged upon, and when clearly responded to, it greatly aids the jury in coming to conclusions in the case; or, if distinctly negatived, the party has no trouble in having it reviewed. It is, therefore, necessary that the point, if relevant, be substantially answered, otherwise it will be error. The qualification of the rule to relevancy excludes, of course, abstract propositions, or such as, if answered as prayed for, would not have benefited the party.

In looking into the testimony in the present case, we think there was sufficient evidence to authorize the defendants to ask for instructions on the effect of it, as regards the act of the plaintiff and the deceased in leaving the cars, and placing themselves on the south track of the road. If they did voluntarily and negligently place themselves there, when there was a safe place of exit and full opportunity to make it, surely the defendants would not be liable as common carriers, if, instead of leaving by the usual mode of stepping on the platform, they negligently and voluntarily placed themselves on the other track. This was the law of the plaintiffs' point. It is true, it was faulty in the assumption of the facts of which it was predicated. But as to this no objection was made by the court, and a distinct answer was not refused for this reason, nor could it well have been for such a reason, as it was capable of as distinct an answer on the law, giving at the same time the facts to the jury, as if it had been hypothetical in form. It should have been as distinctly answered, if answered at all, as if put hypothetically. But it was not, and we do not find it sufficiently affirmed, in relation to the facts on which it was based, in any part of the charge. True, it might be deduced from observations in other connections, and relations to other facts. But this is not quite enough. It ought to have been answered in the relation in which it was put, somewhere. The party was entitled to this. The jury could not, without much greater skill in construing language than generally falls to their lot, have told whether the point was affirmed or negatived.

The point asserted immunity to the company, if the plaintiff and his son voluntarily placed themselves on the other track of the road, unless in case of gross negligence on part of the company. The answer, instead of affirming this, if the facts were true, treated of the duty of the company to convey safely, and to provide a safe mode of exit from the cars, and added, "if they left the train in the usual way and were properly regardful of their own safety, and did everything their own duty required of them, and in thus leaving the train, and before they found a place of safety, they were injured by the negligence of the company, then we think that passengers in that condition, although separated from the train, would have a right to recover for such negligence. This is not the case of a stranger unconnected with the train, placing himself voluntarily on the track." This was clearly an insufficient answer; in fact, in addition to the just complaint of insufficiency, it introduced an element which it is difficult to tell the effect of in such a case, and that was in leaving it to be inferred that there was no place of safety provided for leaving the cars, for the court say, if "they did everything that duty required of them in thus leaving the train, and before they found a place of safety," they were injured by the negligence of the company, a recovery might be had. From this language, a jury might have inferred, and perhaps did, that acting as carefully as they could, there was no place of safety provided for leaving the cars. An intimation like this, although not intended, might have a very mischievous effect. This assignment of error, we think, is sustained.

2. The second assignment, like the first, is to the insufficiency of the answer to defendant's second point. This point asserted the principle that if the accident occurred after the plaintiff and deceased had left the cars, the liability of common carriers was ended, and having been killed after this, the action could not be sustained, unless the death was the result of gross negligence or wanton injury. There was sufficient testimony in the case to justify the defendant in making the point, and the court should have given a distinct response to it, although, like the last one, it was faulty in form. Notwithstanding this, the court essayed an answer by saying, "this point is answered in our answer to the first point of the defendant as above." How answered, affirmatively or negatively? We cannot say, and we think a jury could not have derived much instruction from it. As we have already said, the party was entitled, either directly in answer to this point, or in the body of the charge, to a distinct response to the proposition. The gravamen of the complaint was against the defendants as common carriers, and as such they were counted against. If this relation had ended when the accident occurred, the plaintiffs could not have recovered, and the evidence shows this to have been a debatable point in the case. A very different rule of responsibility exists, where such an accident occurs during the continuance of the relation of common carriers, and after it has entirely ended. And it was important that the jury should have been instructed clearly as to this, so that they might not disregard the distinction, upon the idea that the company were answerable at all events, under the evidence, and that the objection was merely technical. Special care is the duty of the court in all cases, where there is much to excite sympathy, and lead away the judgment from the application of well settled principles of law. Adherence to these principles under all circumstances, is the only security we can have. A disregard of them is an injury to the people, by rendering less secure the safeguards of the law upon which all must rely in the hour of trouble. We think the answer was insufficient.

The fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, and tenth assignments of error may be considered together. In their third and fourth points, the plaintiffs in error prayed the court to charge, that as common carriers, they were only bound to provide for the safe transportation of passengers, and for...