Carpenter v. Kurn

157 S.W.2d 213, 348 Mo. 1132, 1941 Mo. LEXIS 587
CourtSupreme Court of Missouri
DecidedDecember 16, 1941
StatusPublished
Cited by7 cases

This text of 157 S.W.2d 213 (Carpenter v. Kurn) 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
Carpenter v. Kurn, 157 S.W.2d 213, 348 Mo. 1132, 1941 Mo. LEXIS 587 (Mo. 1941).

Opinion

*1137 TIPTON, P. J.

Bespondent brought this action as widow of Beuben Carpenter, deceased, to recover damages for alleged wrongful death of her husband, which occurred on May 25, 1937, near Henryetta, Oklahoma. She brought this action for the benefit of herself and deceased’s four minor children. This action was first tried in the Circuit Court of Barry County, Missouri, where respondent obtained a judgment for $18,000. We reversed that judgment for error in respondent’s instruction; our opinion is reported in 345 Mo. 877, 136 S. W. (2d) 997, where a full statement of the facts may be found. Thereafter, the case was sent to Henry County, Missouri, on a change of venue, where a judgment of $20,000 was obtained by respondent. The appellants have duly appealed from that judgment.

The appellants’ first assignment of error is that their demurrer to the evidence should have been sustained. The accident in question occurred on appellants’ track about a mile south of Henryetta, when deceased was run over by one of appellants’ trains while he was sitting on the east rail of appellants’ track. The respondent’s evidence in this trial was substantially the same as it was in the first trial. The appellants had some new evidence which was expert testimony showing in what distance the train could be stopped. Under thbse circumstances, we are bound by our first decision in holding that respondent made a submissible case, unless we made a mistake of fact or law. [Kick v. Franklin, 345 Mo. 752, 137 S. W. (2d) 512; Arnold v. Alton R. Co., 348 Mo. 516, 154 S. W. (2d) 58.] We have re-examined the facts and have come to the conclusion that respondent made a case for the jury. The additional evidence merely controverted the respondent’s evidence. Moreover, this additional evidence was only accumulation of evidence offered by appellants in the first trial. The *1138 jury evidently did not believe appellants’ evidence. This they had a right to do.

The appellants assigned as error the testimony of witnesses Sherman Gipson and Luther Houk, who testified that on two occasions following the accident, they, with others, made certain tests for the purpose of ascertaining the distance one standing on the track could tell that a person sitting in the same position and dressed the same as deceased was a human being. The conditions under which these tests were made were the same as existed when deceased was struck by appellants ’ train, except that persons making the observation were on foot instead of being in the cab of a moving engine.

The appellants contend this testimony is inadmissible; first, for the reason that these witnesses knew in advance the object on the track when the tests were made was a man and just how he was dressed, and second, that these witnesses were on foot, while the engineer was in a moving engine attended with much vibration and lateral motion.

“ ‘. . . But, if the evidence shows that the experiment was made under circumstances similar, or approximately similar, to those which surround, the original transaction, and such experiment would serve to shed any light upon that transaction, we can see no reason for the exclusion of such experiment, although it might not have been made under exactly similar conditions as attended the original transaction. The dissimilarity would not exclude, but would go to, its weight before the jury. . . .’ ” [Amsbary v. Grays Harbor Ry. & Light Co., 78 Wash. 379, 139 Pac. 46, l. c. 51, 8 A. L. R. 1.]

The above quotation was approved by this court in the case of Griggs v. Kansas City Rys. Co. (Mo.), 228 S. W. 508, l. c. 512. In that case, we held: “The difference in the conduct of such an experiment arising from the fact that the experimenter looks for what he is expected to see, while the engineer or motorman is expected only to watch for any object that might appear upon the track, and has his attention more or less engaged in operating his car or engine, is not a difference of condition sufficient to warrant the exclusion of the evidence. Its weight is a matter for the jury.” To the same effect is the case of Norfolk & W. Ry. Co. v. Henderson, 132 Va. 297, 111 S. E. 277. We, therefore, overrule appellants’ first objection,to this testimony.

The question next arises, were the conditions when the witnesses were standing on the track making the experiments substantially the same as those when the engineer was in the cab of his engine, when the accident occurred resulting in deceased’s death? Respondent’s witness Ruskoski testified that an engineer could not see as far when the engine was running as when it was standing still, but he did testify that the engineer on a moving engine could see as well as a man standing on the ground and that the lateral motion of the cab impairs the view of an engineer looking down the track “very little, if any,” and is not noticeable. Respondent’s witness Wilson testified *1139 that side-swáy "didn’t have any material effect on yonr vision, and that you could see as far looking through one of those plate glasses as you could if you were standing oirthe ground.”

The Supreme Court of Arkansas, in ruling almost the same question in the case of St. Louis, I. M. & S. Ry. Co. v. McMichael, 115 Ark. 101, 171 S.W. 115, l. c. 121, said:

"We are of the opinion that the court did not err in holding that the conditions under which the experiments were made by the witnesses on behalf of the appellee were substantially the same. It is true that the witnesses who made these observations were not on an engine moving at a speed of 35 or 40 miles an hour, but there was testimony of expert passenger engineers to the effect that one accustomed to the movements of an engine could see a man as plainly from an engine going 35 or 40 miles per hour as one standing or walking on the track. This testimony, although contradicted by expert passenger engineers testifying for appellant, was nevertheless sufficient to render the testimony of the witnesses for appellee competent, so far as the essential similarity of viewpoints was concerned.”

To the same effect are the following cases: Panhandle & S. F. Ry. Co. v. Haywood (Tex. Civ. App.), 227 S. W. 347; Young v. Clark et al., 16 Utah, 42, 50 Pac. 832; Cox v. Norfolk & C. R. Co., 126 N. C. 103, 35 S. E. 237; and Norfolk & W. Ry. Co. v. Henderson, 132 Va. 297, 111 S. E. 277. We, therefore, hold that this evidence was properly admitted.

The appellants contend the court erred in refusing their re-quested instructions, numbers 11 and 12. The first paragraph of both these instructions is the same, and is as follows:

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Bluebook (online)
157 S.W.2d 213, 348 Mo. 1132, 1941 Mo. LEXIS 587, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/carpenter-v-kurn-mo-1941.