Baird v. Citizens' Railway Co.

48 S.W. 78, 146 Mo. 265, 1898 Mo. LEXIS 29
CourtSupreme Court of Missouri
DecidedNovember 21, 1898
StatusPublished
Cited by26 cases

This text of 48 S.W. 78 (Baird v. Citizens' Railway Co.) 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
Baird v. Citizens' Railway Co., 48 S.W. 78, 146 Mo. 265, 1898 Mo. LEXIS 29 (Mo. 1898).

Opinion

Burgess, J.

This is an action instituted by plaintiff, the mother of Harry Baird, a minor, for the recovery of $5,000 damages under the provisions of section 4425 (Revised Statutes 1889) for his death, occasioned, as she alleges, by the negligence of defendant.

The petition alleges that plaintiff is a widow, and the mother of Harry Baird who died on the thirty-first day of’May, 1893, then aged six years, but it does not allege that he was unmarried.

The acts of negligence are alleged to be that defendant “in failing to sound the gong, or warning signal, as is required by proper and prudent management, and as is customary when persons are in close proximity to its tracks and in failing to keep a proper lookout for persons approaching its tracks,” struck the said minor by its grip car of said train, and injured him so that he died within a short time thereafter, and that the [269]*269failure of defendant’s servants and agents in charge of and operating said train of cars, to sound the gong, or warning signal, while said minor was approaching its tracks, and going into, and in a position of danger, and to keep a proper lookout for persons on, or approaching its tracks, was the direct result of said injuries; that the servants in the employ of defendant “in charge of said train, did or by the exercise of reasonable diligence could have discovered the peril in which the plaintiff’s .said minor son was placed on or. near the tracks, in time to have avoided the injury, but, negligently and carelessly, failed to stop said train after such peril was or could by the exercise of reasonable care have been seen by its servants or employees in charge of said train, and thus have avoided the injury to said minor.”

The answer admitted the incorporation and business of defendant, the relationship of plaintiff to deceased and that he came to his death by reason of being run over by a car of the defendants and denied all the other allegations of the petition, and further averred that his death was the result of his own negligence in running in front of or against the front corner of the grip car, while the same was in rapid motion; which averment was denied by the reply.

There was atrial to a jury who rendered a verdict in favor of plaintiff for $5,000 upon which judgment was rendered, from which defendant appeals.

The facts of the case as disclosed by the evidence, briefly stated, were that plaintiff’s son, Harry, aged six years, small of his age, and rather clumsy, about 5 o’clock p. m. of May 13, 1893, started with his sister Lulu from number 3512, Easton avenue, St. Louis, where they resided with their mother, to a grocery store about two blocks distant, on an errand. Lulu forgot what she had been sent for, and sent Harry back to the [270]*270house to ascertain what it was. When he reached the house Minnie Meyers, a domestic, informed him what was wanted, when he started back across the street in a diagonal direction to join his sister, but stopped at the curb of the sidewalk until an east bound car passed, and then started on at a fast walk, and after he had gone about twenty or twenty-five feet more, he was struck by a west bound car, at a point seventy feet from the door of his mother’s residence, thrown under it, and fatally injured, his body being found under the center of the car. Evidence adduced by the plaintiff tended to show that this car was some distance east of where the accident occurred, at the time the boy left the sidewalk and started across the street the last time. After he was struck by the train of cars, he was dragged about sixty feet to the point where the train was stopped.

The train that caused the injury, consisting of a trailer and a grip car, stopped to let off a lady and child where Francis street intersects Easton avenue, the front of the grip car being at that time about fifty feet from where the accident occurred.

Plaintiff’s evidence also tended to show that when the train left this point that it started up slowly, and when at a point about thirty-five feet from the point of the accident the gripman was looking north and kept looking in that direction. That about this point a boy named O’Brien jumped on the grip from the north side. That the gripman gave no alarm; the bell only being rung at Francis street, when two taps were given. That O’Brien jumped on the foot rail of the grip, about the third seat from the front facing west, turned round quickly, and walked back about six feet and jumped off, when he immediately heard a commotion and a hollowing. That the grip car went on its way with' the boy under it, when the evidence [271]*271showed that it could have been stopped in twenty-five or thirty feet. The gripman testified that the car name to a stop about the center of a fence, which is sixty feet distant from the point of collision. No warning was given at the time the boy was struck. That there was nothing to prevent the gripman from seeing the boy had he been looking in the right direction.

The evidence upon the part of defendant tended to show that as the train going west was approaching the point of the accident one or two east-bound trains passed on the south track, and behind the east-bound train was a coal wagon with a large bed on it, and as the west-bound car was within four or five feet of ’ the hind end of the coal wagon the deceased suddenly ran from behind the wagon against the south front corner of the cable car, which extended about seven inches outside of the rail. That at the moment the boy appeared in sight, the gripman saw him and threw his grip to release the cable instantly, and put on both brakes of the grip car as quickly and hard as possible, to stop the car, and did stop it within twelve or fifteen feet; that the gripman as he left Francis street was looking west down the street, paying attention to his duties, and stopped the train before the grip car ran over the boy. That the gripman had no time to ring any bell, that to have done so he would have had to reach up with one hand and catch hold of the bell cord to ring it, and there was no time for that. That instead of that he let go the cable rope and jumped for the brakes and applied them as hard as he could. That if he had taken time to ring the bell, he would have run clear over the boy. That there was nothing that the gripman could have done, except what he did. That he had rung his bell as he approached Francis street, and it could be heard at Grrand avenue.

There was some evidence tending to show that [272]*272just at the time of the accident there was a car going east, and when it passed, deceased ran from behind it and into the front end of the car coming west, and that the gripman could not see the boy on account of the car going east. But if there was anything to prevent the gripman from seeing the boy when approaching the track it was an ice wagon, and plaintiff’s evidence tended to show there was none there.

At the close of plaintiff’s evidence, and again at the close of all the evidence, the court refused to give for defendant an instruction in the nature of a demurrer to the evidence, and submitted the case to the jury on the following instructions:

Plaintiff’s Instructions.
“1. The court instructs the jury that if they find from the evidence that on the 13th day of May, 1893, the defendant corporation was operating a cable railway, running for a part of its course along Easton avenue between Francis street and Grand avenue of the city of St.

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Bluebook (online)
48 S.W. 78, 146 Mo. 265, 1898 Mo. LEXIS 29, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/baird-v-citizens-railway-co-mo-1898.