Union Pac Co v. Hadley

• Citation: 38 S.Ct. 318,246 U.S. 330,62 L.Ed. 751
• Decision Date: 18 March 1918
• Docket Number: No. 174,174
• Parties: UNION PAC. R. CO. v. HADLEY
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

246 U.S. 330

38 S.Ct. 318

62 L.Ed. 751

UNION PAC. R. CO.

v HADLEY.

No. 174.

Argued March 7, 1918.

Decided March 18, 1918.

Mr. Nelson H. Loomis, of Omaha, Neb., for plaintiff in error.

Mr. John J. Halligan, of North Platte, Neb., for defendant in error.

Mr. Justice HOLMES delivered the opinion of the Court.

This is an action under the Federal Employers' Liability Act of April 22, 1908, c. 149, 35 Stat. 65, for causing the death of Cradit, the plaintiff's (the defendant in error's) intestate. The case was brought to this Court before the Act of September 6, 1916, c. 448, 39 Stat. 727 and with the exception of one or two matters that need a word, presents only the ordinary questions of negligence that it is not our practice to discuss at length.

The deceased was a brakeman on an eastbound freight train known an Extra 504 East. At Dix, in Nebraska, it was overtaken by another eastbound train known as Extra 501 East. There is a single track from Dix to Mile Post 426, 17 miles distant, and train 504 went ahead to this latter point. Train 501 followed for about half the distance to Potter and was held there until 504 had reached Mile Post 426, seven miles further on, when 501 was started on again, leaving its conductor there. But an Extra 510 West had broken down at Mile Post 426 and the train dispatcher at Sidney, about twelve miles still further east, ordered train 504 to take the disabled engine of 510 back to Sidney. The engineer asked the dispatcher to allow 504 to go on and to let 501, when it came up, take back the engine of 510, but it was refused. No. 501 came up, ran into 504 and killed Cradit and some others. The plaintiff says that the accident was due to at least contributory negligence of the railroad—the defendant that it was not negligent, that Cradit would not have been killed if he had done his duty and had gone back to warn the following train by lights, torpedoes, &c., instead of remaining in the caboose, as he did, and that this was the proximate cause of his death.

On the question of its negligence the defendant undertook to split up the charge into items mentioned in the declaration as constituent elements and to ask a ruling as to each. But the whole may be greater than the sum of its parts, and the Court was justified in leaving the general question to the jury if it thought that the defendant should not be allowed to take the bundle apart and break the sticks separately, and if the defendant's conduct viewed as a whole warranted a finding of neglect. Upon that point there can be no question. We are not left to the mere happening of the accident. There were block signals working on the road that gave automatic warning of danger to 501, and which it was negligent to pass, seen or unseen, as the engine crew knew where they were and that another train was not far ahead. There was a snow storm raging which the jury might have found to have been of unprecedented violence, and it was open to them to find in view of circumstances unnecessary to detail that the dispatcher ought not to have sent out Extra 510 West as he did and...