Birmingham Railway & Electric Co. v. Baker

31 So. 618, 132 Ala. 507, 1902 Ala. LEXIS 92
CourtSupreme Court of Alabama
DecidedJanuary 15, 1902
StatusPublished
Cited by13 cases

This text of 31 So. 618 (Birmingham Railway & Electric Co. v. Baker) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Alabama primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Birmingham Railway & Electric Co. v. Baker, 31 So. 618, 132 Ala. 507, 1902 Ala. LEXIS 92 (Ala. 1902).

Opinion

HARALSON, J.

— 1. Counts one and two of the complaint, the one in its averments of simple negligunee, and the other of Avanton, willful and intentional injury, have too often been held sufficient to admit of further [515]*515consideration.—Highland Ave. & B. R. R. Co. v. Robinson. 28 So. Rep. 28; L. & N. R. R. Co. v. Brown. 121 Ala. 221; L. & N. R. R. Co. v. Orr, 121 Ala. 489; Ala. Gr. S. R. R. Co. v. Burgess, 119 Ala. 587; Armstrong v. Montgomery St. R. Co., 123 Ala. 233; So. R’y Co. v. Guyton, 122 Ala. 231.

2. Demurrers were interposed to pleas 4, 5, 6, 7 and 11 and sustained. These pleas, in substance, attempt to impute to the plaintiff, who was a fireman riding on the hose-cart, the negligence of the driver of the cart. Two of them, the 6th and 11th, not denying the allegations of the complaint, that the plaintiff was, at the time he was riding on said cart, engaged in or about the business of the fire department, in attending an alarm of fire, allege that the plaintiff and the driver of the cart were engaged in a joint enterprise in going to a fire, averring in the one, that the plaintiff’s injuries were caused by the driver of the vehicle, and in the other; that the driver of said wagon was guilty of negligence in driving his wagon into and against the defendant’s car, allege that thereby the driver proximately contributed to the injuries received by the plaintiff.

The principle here invoiced is without merit as applies! to this case. It has undergone elaborate discussion in the courts, and the doctrine once maintained in England is now repudiated generally in that country and in America. In the case of Bailey v. Jourdan, 18 N. Y. App. Div. 387, Bailey was a policeman of Brooklyn, and he and another policeman, Morgan, Avere sent by the police sergeant, Avith an ambulance, to bring to the station-house a prisoner. Morgan was detailed to drive the ambulance, and sat on the driver’s seat and did the driving, AAhile Bailey, the deceased, sat inside the vehicle. A dummy engine struck the ambulance and Bailey was killed in the collision. The contention of defendant was, that Bailey was negligent in failing to watch and wait for the coming train, and that Morgan, the driver, was negligent, and that his negligence should be imputed to Bailey. The testimony did not disclose any negligence on the part of the latter, personally. The court said that it was the duty of the driver and [516]*516not Bailey, to look out for coming trains; that the driver had exclusive charge of the. wagon, and it made ho difference that Bailey and Morgan were sent out by the sergeant in the common employment of bringing in a prisoner; that Bailey had nothing to do with the management of the wagon; that this was the duty of Morgan, with which Bailey had no connection and over which he had no control, and hence the negligence of the driver could not be imputed to him. To the same effect are cited the cases of McCormick v. Nassau E. R. Co., Ib. 333; Galvin v. The Mayor, 112 N. Y. 223; Seaman v. Koehler, 122 N. Y. 646. The distinction is clearly drawn in Bailey’s case, suyra, between cases of the kind, and others, where parties are engaged as comrades in a joint enterprise, with no one in absolute, individual control of the management of the vehicle, but where each, in a measure, is in the management and control of it.

In Little v. Hackett, 116 U. S. 366, Justice Field discussed the principle, and reviewed the authorities, saying that “The identification of the passenger with the negligent driver of the owner, without his co-operation or encouragement, is a gratuitous assumption. There is no such identity. The parties are not in the same position. The owner of a public conveyance is a carrier, and the driver, or the person managing it, is his servant. Neither of them is the servant of the passenger*, and his asserted identity with them is contradicted by the daily experience of the world.”

This court, in Elyton Land Co. v. Mingea, 89 Ala. 521, gave very thorough discussion of the subject, with citation of the authorities from many of the States, to sustain the view expressed in the foregoing cases. That was a case where the plaintiff, as an employe of the fire department of Birmingham, while riding in a hose car-t or reel, in regular pursuit of his duties as a fireman, was injured by the capsizing of the vehicle, in consequence of the negligent condition of defendant’s street railway over which it passed, the vehicle being driven by one Mullins, also a fireman ,and under his exclusive control. The court charged the jury that the negligence [517]*517of the driver of the carriage could not be imputed to the plaintiff, and could not be a bar to his recovery, provided lie was guilty of no negligence. Many charges requested by defendant and refused, sought to impute to plaintiff the alleged negligence of the driver, although the former had no control over the management of the hose cart or the horses attached to it. The court, as a result of the discussion, announced: “The rule must be regarded as now fully settled, both in England and America, and certainly in this State, that the negligence of the driver of a vehicle cannot be imputed to a passenger therein, -when the passenger is free from personal negligence, and has no control over the driver, and has not been guilty of any warit of care in his selection.” It was insisted by the defendant in that case, a’s here, that the plaintiff and the driver were in the employment of the city of Birmingham as firemen, and were, at the time of the injury, in the employment of the city, engaged in a joint enterprise, and for this reason the contributory negligence of the one should be imputed to the other. But this insistence was repudiated by the court, in the expression: “Where several persons are engaged in a joint enterprise, so that each is mutually responsible for the acts of the other, and no one has the exckisive control of the vehicle or vessel in which they were traveling, the one in management may be regarded as the agent of the others; and in such cases, the rule we have first above announced would have no application, that rule being based on the fact that there is no relation of principal and agent between the driver of a vehicle and one who rides with him, without authority to control him in management. Vermus v. T. C. I., & R. Co., 97 Ala. 331; L. & N. R. R. Co. v. Mothershed, 121 Ala. 658.

McKinney, who was the driver, testified that he was assistant foreman of the north side fire department, and was the driver of hose-wagon number 2; that the plaintiff was working with the same fire department; that he assisted in driving; that- when witness was there, he, himself, was in charge and did the driving; that plaintiff had nothing to do with the horses and" wagon [518]*518or any control over them, except to bold them; that witness did the driving and Baker had nothing to do with it; that witness was driving the night of the injury, and Baker was on the wagon. In response to the question, “Did he have anything to do, directly or indirectly, with the reins or the driving of that wagon or horses that night?” he replied, “Nothing whatever;” that he. “had nothing to do with controlling those horses and handling those lines or driving that wagon that night;” he was not sitting on the seat with witness, hut was about two feet back of him on the ladders of the hose-wagon.

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Bluebook (online)
31 So. 618, 132 Ala. 507, 1902 Ala. LEXIS 92, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/birmingham-railway-electric-co-v-baker-ala-1902.