Cincinnati, N. O. & T. P. Ry. Co. v. Gray

101 F. 623, 50 L.R.A. 47, 1900 U.S. App. LEXIS 4442
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit
DecidedMay 8, 1900
DocketNo. 793
StatusPublished
Cited by9 cases

This text of 101 F. 623 (Cincinnati, N. O. & T. P. Ry. Co. v. Gray) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Cincinnati, N. O. & T. P. Ry. Co. v. Gray, 101 F. 623, 50 L.R.A. 47, 1900 U.S. App. LEXIS 4442 (6th Cir. 1900).

Opinion

EYANS, District Judge,

after stating the facts as above, delivered the opinion of tbe court.

Error is assigned by appellant upon tbe action of tbe court below in i)erinit1iug the filing of certain amended petitions, but, as these were matters entirely within the sound discretion of the trial court, the authorities are uniform to the effect that such action is not reviewable upon appeal. This rule ajadles quite as forcefully to tbe amended petition permitted to be filed at or near the final hearing of the case as to the others. Corrections and amendments of pleadings are liberally allowed in order to subserve the ends of justice, and to secure a thorough presentation of the claim or defense, so that its merits may be' fully disclosed. There was therefore no reviewable error in the action of the circuit court, in this respect.

After the judgment in the court below the appellant’s counsel presented a petition for a rehearing, which was denied, and error is also assigned upon that action of the court. We need not do more than say that the cases all agree that the action of the trial court, upon petitions of this character and upon motions for new trials, is not assignable for error. They are matters of discretion entirely. It is unnecessary to cite authorities upon this point.

Nor do we think that the Kentucky statute of limitations bars tbe claim of the petitioner. The claim arose when the injury occurred, on March 26, 1893. The original petition was filed September 18, 1893, much less than the required one year after the injury. The second amended petition was filed on December 26, 1895, a former one not appearing in tbe record, and the third was, by express leave of the court, filed on April 25, 3899. Tbe last amendment was possibly designed rather to make tbe pleadings conform to the proof than for any other purpose. It may be, and doubtless is, true that, when an amended petition sets up an entirely new and distinct cause-of action, time, under the statute, will not cease to run until the date of filing it. Cecil v. Sowards, 10 Bush, 96; Leatherman v. Times Co., 88 Ky. 292, 11 S. W. 12. But this rule by no means applies to a case such as we have before us, in which the original and real cause of action, namely, the negligence by which Gray was injured, was never departed from nor abandoned. The plaintiff only restated the circumstances of the' injury as the investigation appeared to develop them; but these were tbe particulars, tbe details merely, of tbe substantive claim, stated in general terms, that the injury to Gray was due to the inculpating negligence of the receiver.

The action itself, to recover damages for that negligence and its results, was the principal thing, whatever may have been the details incident thereto, and was commenced within one year, and was not barred by the statute of limitations by reason of tbe supplying, by amendment, of any omission, or by correcting any error in the original statement of the petitioner’s claim that her intestate was injured by the receiver’s negligence, whether the details of its happening were one way or another. For the injuries complained of the suit was, without any objection to its form, instituted before the master in the way already mentioned, and, although the means and manner of tbe [626]*626infliction of these injuries were variously stated, the appellee, as we have seen, always relied upon the original claim that her intestate was injured by the negligence of the receiver. It does not appear, therefore, -that this assignment of error is well taken. The action was brought within the year allowed by the Kentucky statute. It has been prosecuted continuously from that time until now, and the generic cause of action has always been the same.

It was insisted in the circuit court, as it is here, that Cook was not a fellow servant of Gray, but a vice principal, and that his negligence in running the train through the switch when it was open, and his failure to accurately instruct the employés of the receiver as to the limitations upon its use, were not the negligent acts merely of a fellow servant in the same employment with the decedent, but were those of the master himself, in whose employ as vice principal it was claimed Cook in these respects stood. We cannot accept this view, but agree with the learned circu i t judge in his opinion that 'Cook was the fellow servant of Gray, and that no liability arose out of what he did at the time of the accident nor previously in reference to the switch. This com elusion seems unavoidable upon the authority of many cases. Among them we need only cite Railroad Co. v. Peterson, 162 U. S. 346, 16 Sup. Ct. 843, 40 L. Ed. 944; Railroad Co. v. Baugh, 149 U. S. 369, 13 Sup. Ct. 914, 37 L. Ed. 772; Same v. Camp, 31 U. S. App. 236, 13 C. C. A. 233, 65 Fed. 952.

In accepting a voluntary employment, a servant, as is well understood, assumes all the ordinary and obvious risks of such employment, including those arising from the negligence of his fellow servants; but, in the view we take of the facts of this case, our decision must rest upon another phase of it. As we have seen, the form of switch, which is called automatic, while long, successfully, and safely used by other roads, had been in use in the yards of this railroad, when Gray was injured, only two or three days, and it is not shown that he personally had any previous knowledge of the workings or operations of such a switch, particularly in so far as they differed from the old one, which it had replaced. Ko instructions had been given by the receiver explaining the uses of this new appliance; nor had any notice been given of the possible dangers of its use under certain altogether probable circumstances; nor had any regulations whatever been promulgated respecting its operations, although in some important respects they were very different from those of the old one. True, the switch cannot be regarded as dangerous per se, but certainly there were conditions upon which it might become most daflgerous, and these were unknown to Gray. They existed, but he Atas not notified of it. Though possibly unfortunately called an “automatic switch,” it was not intended to do its own work, but was intended always to be set by hand, though its automatic féature was expected to be a useful safeguard in any time of emergency due to a negligent or accidental omission to set it by hand. In this sense, and in this sense only, it was an emergency switch. It is not shown that Gray had notice of these facts. On the contrary, the little information he had about the operations of the switch tended rather to show him that it was a labor-saving device, which was designed to avoid the work of setting it by hand, [627]*627and leave it to be operated upon by tlie force of moving cars and engines as they came upon it, thus doing its own work.

It is true that the general purpose and operations of an ordinary railroad switch were perfectly understood by Gray, and that if there had been nothing more in (his case than the act of a fellow servant in running' a train through a switch, known and seen to be open, there would not be the slightest right to recover for the injury inflicted in that way. But here there was a new kind of switch, very recently put in. The methods of its operation, particularly wherein they differed from those of the former switch, had not been explained to Gray, and were not obvious.

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Bluebook (online)
101 F. 623, 50 L.R.A. 47, 1900 U.S. App. LEXIS 4442, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/cincinnati-n-o-t-p-ry-co-v-gray-ca6-1900.