Atlanta, Knoxville & Northern Railway Co. v. Roberts

42 S.E. 753, 116 Ga. 505, 1902 Ga. LEXIS 150
CourtSupreme Court of Georgia
DecidedOctober 31, 1902
StatusPublished
Cited by13 cases

This text of 42 S.E. 753 (Atlanta, Knoxville & Northern Railway Co. v. Roberts) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Georgia primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Atlanta, Knoxville & Northern Railway Co. v. Roberts, 42 S.E. 753, 116 Ga. 505, 1902 Ga. LEXIS 150 (Ga. 1902).

Opinion

Little, J.

Roberts brought suit against the Atlanta, Knoxville and Northern Railway Company to recover damages for personal injuries which he alleged he sustained by the running and opera-, tion of a car belonging to the defendant, by the negligence of the servants and agents of the company. The defendant denied generally all the allegations of the petition. The trial resulted in a verdict for the plaintiff. Defendant submitted a motion for a new trial, which being overruled, it sued out a bill of exceptions, in which error is assigned to the overruling of its motion for a non-suit made at the conclusion of the evidence for the plaintiff, and [506]*506to the overruling of the motion for a new trial. The truth of certain evidence on the part of the plaintiff is practically uncontested, to wit: that plaintiff had been employed by Long to load bark in a car belonging to the defendant, which by it had been placed on a side-track at Ellijay; and that while in the car, a locomotive belonging to defendant was attached to it for the purpose of drilling or switching, and while the car was being moved on the track it was derailed and overturned. 'It was also uncontésted that the plaintiff was injured. It is claimed, however, by the company that he was injured by jumping from the car after it had stopped, and when there was no further danger; and it is urged that plaintiff saw the freight-train, the locomotive of which was doing the switching, at the time it came in, that he knew it was. coming in on his track, and that he ceased his business of packing the bark, and sat on it for the purpose of holding it in place; that the company had no knowledge or notice that the plaintiff was on the car; that the plaintiff knew it was going to be moved; that he was not a passenger, nor was he injured while loading or unloading the car, but that he remained in the car without making his presence known that he could have left it at any time, and it was his duty either to have made his presence known or to have left the car; and that under these circumstances, as the evidence shows that the plaintiff was not intentionally or wilfully injured, the company was not liable.

1. We.are of tbe opinion that the court did not err in overruling the motion for a nonsuit. It is apparent from the evidence in the case that the company placed the car on the side-track for the purpose of allowing it to be loaded with bark by Mr. Long. In doing so it did not lose the right of control over the car, nor the right to change its place on its tracks, as its convenience required. When it placed the car on the side-track to be loaded, it did so with the .knowledge that it would be occupied by Long or his employees from time to time until the loading was completed. This knowledge carried with it a duty to operate and move the ear in such a manner, and on such notice to those engaged in loading or being therein in connection with that business, as would not place them in danger. These propositions being sound, as we think, and the evidence certainly authorizing a verdict that this duty was not met, the trial judge would-not haye been warranted in withdrawing the [507]*507case from the jury and ruling that the evidence for the plaintiff did not entitle him to a recovery. There was, therefore, no error in overruling the motion for nonsuit.

2. A number of grounds are set out in the motion for a new trial. We have carefully considered these, and the reasons submitted why the trial judge erred in charging the jury in different particulars, in ruling on the admissibility of evidence, and in failing to charge. . None of these grounds, in our opinion, present a cause sufficient to set aside the verdict which was rendered. It is our opinion that the judge did not err in instructing the jury in the language of the Civil Code, §2321; nor in failing to charge that the provisions of law contained in that section were not applicable in case the jury should find that the plaintiff was not injured by the running of defendant’s cars, but, in the latter event, the rights of the parties should be determined by other and different rules. There was no request that the latter proposition should be given in charge. If there had been, it would not, as we interpret the evidence, have been authorized. There is no question that the car in which the plaintiff remained was derailed and overturned while being moved on the track of the defendant company, and from the evidence in relation to the cause of such derailment the jury would have been fully authorized to say that it was caused by the want of proper care and diligence on the part of the agents of the company. Nor does there seem to be any serious contention that the plaintiff was not injured while jumping from the car which was derailed and turned over. Although he w,as, it does not necessarily follow that the company was not responsible for the damage which the plaintiff so sustained. The rule governing such liability, as announced by this court in the case of Southwestern R. Co. v. Paulk, 24 Ga. 356, is this: “If through the default of a corporation or its servants the passenger is placed in such a perilous condition as to render it an act of reasonable precaution, for the purpose £>f self-preservation, to leap from the cars, the company is responsible for the injury he receives thereby; although if he had remained in the cars he would not have been injured.” In the case of Smith v. R. Co., 83 Ga. 671, after the misconduct of the company in threatening the plaintiff with a collision had béen established, Chief Justice Bleckley, in discussing this question says: “The open question is, whether the plaintiff, after discovering the [508]*508danger, acted recklessly or rashly and thus brought upon himself a calamity which he might have avoided by more discreet conduct. All the authorities concur in holding that the duty of the person for his own safety, in such an emergency, is not to be measured by the ordinary standard, but that allowance is to be made for the state of his emotions. The authorities to this effect which might be cited amount to scores, if not hundreds.”

The contention here is that the plaintiff was not injured by the running of the cars, but because, recklessly, when there was no occasion to do so, he jumped from the car and was injured; and that therefore the court without request should have charged the jury (practically) that if they found such to be the fact, then the rule that the company was liable for damages sustained by the operation of the cars would not apply. If the evidence as a whole be tested by the principles of law extracted from the decisions in the cases above cited, it will be found that such a charge would not have been warranted. The evidence shows that at the time the car was derailed the plaintiff, who had been packing the bark in one end of the car, had placed a plank on it, and sat upon the plank to prevent the bark from being disarranged by the movement of the car; and that he had been employed by Long to load the car. It is true that one of the witnesses, who testified that his attention was attracted by the noise of the ear jumping over the ties, said that when he looked the car was off the track and going slowly; that it seemed almost to stop and then lean, and gradually to turn over; that it fell on its side; that he saw the plaintiff, looking very much alarmed, come out of the car and jump off; and, at the time, the car had stopped and was lying on its side.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
42 S.E. 753, 116 Ga. 505, 1902 Ga. LEXIS 150, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/atlanta-knoxville-northern-railway-co-v-roberts-ga-1902.