Yazoo & Mississippi Valley Railway Co. v. Jones

• Decision Date: 03 April 1916
• Citation: 111 Miss. 159,71 So. 309
• Parties: YAZOO & MISSISSIPPI VALLEY RAILWAY COMPANY v. JONES
• Court: Mississippi Supreme Court

71 So. 309

111 Miss. 159

YAZOO & MISSISSIPPI VALLEY RAILWAY COMPANY v. JONES

Supreme Court of Mississippi

April 3, 1916

March 1916

APPEAL from the circuit court of Bolivar county, HON. W. A. ALCORN Judge.

Suit by J. Carl Jones against the Yazoo & Mississippi Valley Railroad Company. From a judgment for plaintiff, defendant appeals.

The suit was filed in the circuit court for damages on account of the alleged negligent killing of two mules belonging to the appellee, and resulted in a judgment against appellant, from which it appeals.

The accident occurred at night. The only evidence introduced by plaintiff shows that the mules had run down the track and had evidently been struck by the train. Both of them had their backs and legs broken. They were found standing some distance from the track a short time after the cannon ball train had past, which was about three-thirty a. m. The appellant's engineman testified that he was running his train about fifty miles an hour in the country, and that he was in his proper place on the engine, keeping a lookout ahead, and that his headlight revealed the mules on the track about four hundred or five hundred feet ahead of the train; that the engine was properly equipped and all equipment was working well; that he immediately shut off the steam, blew the stock alarm, and applied the emergency brakes, and did all that he could do to prevent the accident, but that the train could not have been stopped in less than twelve hundred feet after the brakes had been applied, and that the mules were struck by the engine before the engine could be stopped; that the train ran about five hundred feet after he first discovered the mules until they were struck; that they were running up the track when overtaken and struck; and that the accident was unavoidable. On appeal it is contended that the court should have granted a peremptory instruction for the railroad company.

Reversed and remanded.

Mayes &amp Mayes, for appellant.

D. J. Allan, Jr., for appellee.

OPINION

COOK, P. J.

We have examined the evidence taken at the trial of this case, and it seems clear to us that the defendant below met the burden imposed by the prima facie statute. The defendant showed just how and under what circumstances the mules were injured by the running train. It appears that the engineman did everything possible to avoid striking the animals after he saw them. We can find nothing in...