Acord v. St. Louis Southwestern Railway Co.

87 S.W. 537, 113 Mo. App. 84, 1905 Mo. App. LEXIS 199
CourtMissouri Court of Appeals
DecidedMay 16, 1905
StatusPublished
Cited by15 cases

This text of 87 S.W. 537 (Acord v. St. Louis Southwestern Railway Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Missouri Court of Appeals primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Acord v. St. Louis Southwestern Railway Co., 87 S.W. 537, 113 Mo. App. 84, 1905 Mo. App. LEXIS 199 (Mo. Ct. App. 1905).

Opinion

NORTONI, J.

(after stating the facts). — ^Appellant’s first point in his brief and in fact the point in the case, is-: “It being conceded by plaintiff his stock was killed within the switch limits at Day (Avert) station, it goes without saying that defendant was not required to fence its right of way at that point.” The evidence shows that the road was unfenced not only within the limits of the switch but as much as one hundred or one hundred and fifty yards beyond the head or -apex of the switch and the heifer was killed on this unfenced track sixty or seventy yards from the switch-head. We think it would be going too far for the court to hold as a matter of law, in the absence of evidence showing the necessity of leaving so much space unfenced, that the railroad could leave open one-half mile of switch limits at a place like Avert and that as much as sixty or seventy yards should be left open by it between its switch-head and cattle-guard. There is no doubt that where the railroad has a right to and does maintain switches at a de[90]*90pot or station, it has the right to leave open and unfenced such ground traversed by the switches and so much also between the apex of the switch and the nearby cattle-guard as is reasonably necessary in order to avoid endangering the lives and limbs of its employes in performing their necessary duties in working about -the switch. [Pearson v. Ry., 33 Mo. App. 543.] But it seems almost unreasonable to leave sixty to seventy yards for this purpose. The evidence is that one hundred or one hundred and fifty yards were open and unfenced at this point but as the heifer was killed sixty or seventy yards from the switch-head, we are concerned with this much and no more. This would be one hundred and eighty or two hundred and ten feet. There is no evidence tending to show that it would endanger the lives or limbs of trainmen to place the cattle-guard near the switch-head; in the absence to that effect it seems that it is more than reasonably necessary for the purposes and we very promptly overrule the assignment in so far as the killing of the heifer is concerned and say that it was for the jury. [Welsh v. Ry., 55 Mo. App. 599.] It will be necessary, however, to give the matter of the killing of the other stock closer attention.

So much of our statute (sec. 1105, R. S. 1899) as is pertinent here, is as follows:

“Every railroad corporation running or operating any railroad in this State shall erect and maintain lawful fences on the sides of the road where the same passes through, along or adjoining inclosed or cultivated fields or uninclosed lands . . . and also to construct and maintain cattle-guards where fences are required, sufficient to prevent horses, cattle, mules or other animals from getting on the railroad.”

The language employed in this section to the effect that fences are required where the road passes along inclosed fields or uninclosed lands is indicative of the purpose of the Legislature to require roads to he fenced along such portions thereof as pass through out-of-town [91]*91or rural districts and for this reason our Supreme Court, in construing it, bas long since established the rule that, no fences are required thereby within the limits of incorporated towns and cities. [Edwards v. Ry., 66 Mo. 567; Loyd v. Ry., 49 Mo. 199; Weir v. Ry., 48 Mo. 558; Iba v. Ry., 45 Mo. 469; Meyer v. Ry., 35 Mo. 352; Smith v. Ry., 111 Mo. App. 410, 85 S. W. 972.] In Ellis v. Ry., 48 Mo. 231, the reason of the rule was given to be that ordinarily a railroad could not pass through a platted town or city without crossing the streets, and again, that such streets were highways within the meaning of the law and that to require railroads to fence inside such towns would require them to obstruct the streets and thus commit a public nuisance, therefore it was held that when stock was killed inside an incorporated town or city at a point where it was .not platted and the streets were not dedicated, there was no reason for excusing them, from fencing such portions as were not platted and where streets were not laid out. But in the latter case of Edwards v. Ry., 66 Mo. 567, which was approved in Wymore v. Ry., 79 Mo. 247, also in Rhea v. Ry., 84 Mo. 345, the Supreme Court repudiated so much of the doctrine announced in the Ellis case, supra, as required fencing inside the corporate limits when there was no platted streets, and held, upon the authority of the case of Loyd v. Ry., 49 Mo. 199, that the true reason of the rule exempting railroads from fencing their lines inside of incorporated towns and cities was that the statute only required them to fence along or adjoining inclosed or cultivated fielcls .or uninclosed prairie lands and this requirement of the statute could have no application to incorporated towns or cities as they were neither- “cultivated fields or uninclosed prairie lands” mentioned in the statute, and cited as bearing out this reasoning, the case of Tiarks v. Ry., 58 Mo. 45, where the court held that under this double damage statute, there could be no recovery for stock killed' at an unfenced point on the road where the road passes through inclosed or unculti[92]*92yated timber lands for the reason, as Judge Wagner said: “The law clearly does not apply to the case and we have no right to Make á new law.” But the statute has been changed since those cases have been decided and the word “prairie” modifying the word “land” has been stricken out. The word “prairie” defeated a recovery in the Tiarks case, supra, because the stock was killed, not at a point adjoining inclosed or cultivated fields nór adjacent prairie lands, the killing having taken place adjacent to uninclosed tiMber lands. (See also Walton v. Ry., 67 Mo. 56.) The statute as it now reads* requires fences at all points outside a town or at public or private crossings and depot or station grounds. [Smith v. Ry., 111 Mo. App. 410, 85 S. W. 972.] In Boyle v. Ry., 21 Mo. App. 424, the court said: “As the law now stands, railroad companies, in short, are required under penalty, to inclose their roads with lawful fences at all points outside incorporated towns, except at public road crossings and about their railroad stations, etc.” This statement of the rule is slightly inaccurate as the court there uses the word “incorporated” towns when it should have said “incorporated or platted” towns, where streets are dedicated to the public use, and added statutory private road crossings. In Gerren v. Ry., 60 Mo. 405, the Supreme Court, in placing a construction upon the adjudicated cases on the subject, said: “Whenever the land is regularly laid out intó lots, blocks or streets, the streets crossing the' railroad, which streets have been dedicated to public use as public highways, it would be unlawful for the railroad company to fence up the streets in such a town, and it would make no difference in such case whether the town so laid out into streets, etc., was incorporated or not.” This case is quoted and followed by the Kansas City Court of Appeals in the case of Vanderworker v. Ry., 48 Mo. App. 654. These cases deal with the section known as the double damage section, which section now requires railroads to fence at all points where the road passes “through, along or adjoin[93]*93ing inclosed or cultivated fields or uninclosed lands,’’ which terms have, by construction, attained the settled meaning of having application only to such territory as is outside of the towns, or in other words, rural districts. And it was held in Rhea v. Ry., 84 Mo.

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Bluebook (online)
87 S.W. 537, 113 Mo. App. 84, 1905 Mo. App. LEXIS 199, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/acord-v-st-louis-southwestern-railway-co-moctapp-1905.