The Pennsylvania Railroad Company v. Kelly
| Citation | 31 Pa. 372 |
| Parties | The Pennsylvania Railroad Company versus Kelly. |
| Decision Date | 01 January 1858 |
| Court | United States State Supreme Court of Pennsylvania |
Miles & Dorris, for the plaintiff in error.
Scott and Benedict, for the defendant in error.
This was an action by a father to recover damages for the maiming of his son, a boy of nine years of age, by what is charged as the negligence of the company's agents. The main facts bear a striking analogy to those in the case of Rauch v. Lloyd & Hill, decided at the present term. A train of cars was stopped on a road or street that leads into the borough of Huntingdon, and whilst it stood there, the plaintiff's son, returning from an errand along that road, attempted to pass under the cars. While he was in the act of doing so, they were set in motion, and injured one of his feet so badly, that amputation became necessary to save his life.
Several questions are raised upon the record by the assignment of errors, which I proceed to notice.
1. It is said the court erred, in holding that the Act of Assembly of 20th March 1845, forbidding the obstructing of the crossings of public roads by locomotives and cars, applied to the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, who were incorporated by a subsequent Act of 13th April 1846.
If this were so, if the company were not subject to the Act of 1845, they would have to show legislative authority to justify their blocking up a street. So far from having any such authority, the 13th section of their charter required them to construct their road in such manner as not to impede the passage or transportation of persons or property along any established road. The obstruction which the jury have found in this case was then without authority of law, and therefore illegal. But it was also in plain violation of the Act of 1845, which was a general law, and applicable to the defendants, though subsequently incorporated.
On both grounds, or on either, the ruling of the court can be sustained. Obstructions were correctly defined to consist, not in the transit across the intersecting road, for that is expressly legalized, but in stopping upon it unnecessarily. And though the Act of 1845 imposes a specific penalty, this in no wise affects the question that is presented in this case. This action is for damages arising out of a tort, and the obstruction proved to the satisfaction of the jury, the tort whereon the action rests is established.
2. But it is said, in the next place, that the obstruction was the remote, and not the proximate, cause of the injury complained of.
This position is answered by the observations that were made on a similar point in Rauch's case, already referred to. Indeed, the reasoning there applies with more force here, for here the company were engaged in transporting their own cars on their own road. The conductor, and everybody else concerned in the management of the train were, confessedly, the company's agents.
Now adjust the acts of stopping and starting ever so nicely to the maxim causa proxima, and not a step of advance is taken by the defence, for the company are equally liable for both causes. If you say it was the starting, and not the stopping of the cars, that did the mischief, the question of plaintiff's negligence in suffering his son to be under them is still in the case, but you have made no progress in the defence, because if there was wrong in the start, the company are as responsible for it as for any wrong in the stop.
The nature of the case, however, does not admit of this nice distinction. The conduct of that train of cars was one thing — intrusted as a special duty to one man — and if his mismanagement injured the plaintiff, without fault on the plaintiff's part, the company are liable for it. To split such a single, simple, individual cause into two causes, and to christen them proxima and remota, is to embarrass ourselves unnecessarily, and to obstruct the course of justice.
3. We come next to the question of the plaintiff's negligence. There is no dispute about the principle that forbids him to recover damages for an injury which his own negligence or wrongdoing contributed to bring on; but what did he do amiss?
He sent his son on a lawful errand along a lawful highway. Was it negligence to permit a boy nine years of age to be abroad on an errand?
This is not pretended, but it is said the boy betrayed a want of discretion in going under the cars; and the learned counsel seem to maintain that a boy nine years of age is bound to the same rule of care and diligence in avoiding the consequences of the neglect or unlawful acts of others, which is required of persons of full age and capacity.
The case relied on for this startling proposition is Hartfield v. Roper, 21 Wend. 617. That case was thus: — A child of about two years of age was permitted to wander from his father's house, and to be sitting or standing in the beaten track of a public highway when the defendant, driving a span of horses and sleigh with two other persons in it, ran over him and injured him. It appeared that the horses were descending a hill at the foot of which was a bridge — that they were going at a reasonable speed, and that there were no houses along that part of the road to excite the expectation that people would be found in the road. Under these circumstances the court held, that failing to see the child in time to avert the danger was not culpable negligence, and they reversed the judgment which gave him damages. The case might have been rested on the propriety of the defendant's conduct. He was pursuing his highway in a lawful and appropriate manner, and that distinguishes the case from ours, for here the wrongdoing of the defendants, in obstructing the highway, is established. But the case is cited for the sake of Judge COWEN'S observations on infantile responsibility, and these I dismiss in the language which Ch. J. REDFIELD employed in concluding his opinion in Robinson v. Coe, 22 Verm. 226: "The case of Hartfield v. Roper," said he, "is, so far as it has any application to the present case, altogether at variance with that of Lynch v. Nurdin, and far less sound in its principles,...
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...incur equal, or even greater, hazards. We cannot, therefore, account this boy's conduct unnatural or extravagant.' Pennsylvania R. Co. v. Kelly, (1858) 31 Pa. 372, 378. Reasonable minds might differ as to the inferences to be drawn from his conduct; might find that plaintiff honestly, if mi......
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