Anderson v. Union Terminal Railroad

61 S.W. 874, 161 Mo. 411, 1901 Mo. LEXIS 121
CourtSupreme Court of Missouri
DecidedMarch 26, 1901
StatusPublished
Cited by36 cases

This text of 61 S.W. 874 (Anderson v. Union Terminal Railroad) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Missouri primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Anderson v. Union Terminal Railroad, 61 S.W. 874, 161 Mo. 411, 1901 Mo. LEXIS 121 (Mo. 1901).

Opinion

ROBINSON, J.

This action is brought by the plaintiff, Otto Anderson, a minor, by his next friend, against the Union Terminal Railroad company and the Kansas City Suburban Belt Railroad company, for personal injuries received by him on December 1, 1895, on Ohio avenue between Wood street and Armstrong avenue, in Kansas City, Kansas. The'injury, it is claimed, was occasioned through the alleged negligence of defendants in placing upon and maintaining in said street a pile of cinders and ashes. The cause was tried before a jury, and plaintiff recovered a judgment of $6,500. Erom this judgment defendants appealed.

The defendants answer separately; their answers, however, set up the same defenses. After admitting the incorporation of defendants and generally denying the other allegations of the petition, the answers averred in substance: first, that the track was laid under ordinance 2164, of Kansas City, Kansas, that it was new, unfinished and incomplete and necessary to be ballasted and surfaced, and to accomplish such purpose, the Union Terminal Railroad company, a short time before the injury in question, caused to be scattered beside and along the track on Ohio avenue, cinders which were afterward used for ballasting and surfacing 'Same, but that the same at no time constituted an obstruction to travel; second, the plaintiff was guilty of contributory negligence, in that he negligently approached so near the track, without looking to see, or listening to hear, whether the train was approaching; [417]*417third, that plaintiff’s injuries were, caused by his attempt to climb upon a moving train, in violation of ordinance 54, prohibiting such acts. The reply was a general denial of the new matter set forth in the answer.

Briefly stated, the records present substantially the following case:

The Terminal company constructed and owned a railroad trade running at grade, east and west, in the center of Ohio avenue in Kansas City, Kansas. A double-track cable street railway was operated upon James street, which runs north and south, crossing Ohio avenue at right angles. The cable cars crossed the Terminal company’s track at grade, about every two minutes. The next parallel street west of James is Wood, or Eirst street, upon which was operated at grade, the tracks of the Kansas City, Northwestern and Chicago, Great Western railroads. The next parallel street to Wood was Armstrong avenue, or Second street. Between Armstrong avenue and Wood street, the terminal company maintains a track on the south side of the street. The Suburban company was organized on July 13, 1892, by a consolidation, under the laws of this State, of the Consolidated Terminal Eailway company, and the Kansas City Suburban Belt Eailway Company.

Prior to the consolidation, however, the Terminal company leased its road to the Consolidated Terminal Eailway Company, and the latter agreed to maintain and operate the same. The evidence discloses that the railroad in question was constructed and put in operation in 1892 or 1893. The ordinance, by virtue of which defendants occupied the street with a railroad, contained a grant to the Terminal company and its assigns, of the right to maintain and operate a road upon condition that the railroad company “shall plank and maintain all crossings of streets and alleys now laid out, or that may [418]*418hereafter be laid out, across the tracks of said company, with three-inch oak plank, for the full width of said street and alleys, between the rails of its tracks, and for the space of three feet on the outside of the rail of its track, and also where said railway is built on Ohio avenue, said railroad shall plank the space between its tracks, and eighteen inches on either side thereof, the entire length of Ohio avenue occupied by said railroad, except where said railway crosses streets and alleys, shall be planked as aforesaid for the space of three feet on the outside of the track.”

It seems that this condition of the franchise was never complied with. A day or two before the accident in question, the Suburban company hauled a lot of cinders and dumped them at the side of the track, on Ohio avenue, between Wood street and Armstrong avenue, and permitted them to remain in sloping piles just as dumped from the train. Although this work was done by the Suburban company, yet it appears that the expenses thereof were charged up to and paid by the Terminal company. There was evidence tending to show that it was negligence in defendants to leave the cinders in the condition in which they were placed. It further appears that the plaintiff, a lad between nine and ten years of age, lived on the west side of Wood street, about fifty feet from the corner of Ohio avenue; the lot, however, extended to the alley between Wood street and Armstrong avenue. He had been down watching some boys skating on a pond a short distance east of James street, and left there for home, intending to go in at the alley. He passed along the south side of Ohio avenue until just after he crossed Wood street, when he started to cross Ohio avenue to the opening of the alley leading to his home. When he left the pond the Suburban train was switching in that vicinity, It was the custom for trains to stop before crossing the railroad track on James and Wood streets to enable the trainmen to go [419]*419forward to see if the crossing was clear. Just after the plaintiff crossed James street, he looked back and saw the train still switching; after he had crossed Wood street, he looked again back to the east, and saw the train nearing James street, thus making it necessary for the train to stop twice before it passed Wood street if it observed the custom of flagging trains that might be passing on the cross streets. After crossing Wood street, he started to cross Ohio avenue, and reached a point within one or two steps of the track when he looked again to the east and saw the train approaching and within fifteen or twenty feet of him. The engine was at the rear of the train .of six or seven cars, pushing them, and no employee was at the front or west end on the lookout, though the rules of the company require it. Thinking there was not time to cross in front of the moving train in safety the boy stepped back in ■order, as he says, to get out of the way of the train, but as he did so, he stumbled against and fell over one of the cinder piles, which he says he had not noticed, and -which had not 'been leveled, but had been left three or four feet high, just as it had been dumped from the car by defendants. When he fell he says he tried to scramble out of the way but slipped down the side of the cinder pile till one leg slipped under the moving train and was cut off. The other facts necessary to be stated will appear later on in the opinion.

The court below' permitted plaintiff, against defendant’s ■objection, to read in evidence section 3 of ordinance 833 of Kansas City, Kansas, making it unlawful to deposit cinders in the street, and ordinance 522, prohibiting the backing of a train without a watchman at the end, requiring the ringing of the bell on all moving trains, and limiting the rate of speed to six miles an hour, without any averment in the petition of the acceptance of said ordinances by the defendants. The court, however, at the close of the evidence, withdrew said ordinances by [420]*420an instruction and directed the jury to disregard the same. It is contended by defendants, that under the rulings of this court, in Sanders v. Railroad, 147 Mo. 411; and Byington v. Railroad, 147 Mo.

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Bluebook (online)
61 S.W. 874, 161 Mo. 411, 1901 Mo. LEXIS 121, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/anderson-v-union-terminal-railroad-mo-1901.