Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago & St. Louis Railway Co. v. Stewart

68 N.E. 170, 161 Ind. 242, 1903 Ind. LEXIS 158
CourtIndiana Supreme Court
DecidedOctober 7, 1903
DocketNo. 19,977
StatusPublished
Cited by17 cases

This text of 68 N.E. 170 (Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago & St. Louis Railway Co. v. Stewart) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Indiana Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago & St. Louis Railway Co. v. Stewart, 68 N.E. 170, 161 Ind. 242, 1903 Ind. LEXIS 158 (Ind. 1903).

Opinion

Dowling, J.

— The appellee recovered a judgment against the appellant for a personal injury sustained by him at a street crossing in the city of Indianapolis hy reason of the alleged negligence of the appellant.

The railroad company appeals, and assigns for error the overruling of its motion for a new trial. The reasons for the motion discussed by counsel for appellant are:

(1) That the verdict is not sustained hy sufficient evidence;

(2) that the court erred in giving instructions numbered six, seven, eight, and nine; and (3) that the answers of the jury to certain questions of fact were not sustained by sufficient evidence.

The material facts shown hy the evidence were these: The appellee, a farmer living five miles from Indianapolis, thirty-eight years old, and having the use of all his faculties, was passing through the city in an open buggy, drawn hy a gentle horse, between 11 and 12 o’clock on the night of May 21, 1899. The night was neither very light nor very dark. He drove vsouth on Missouri street, one of the public streets of the city, to the point where that highway is intersected by seven railroad tracks, one of them, the first or north track, being used by the appellant. From the point of intersection eastward for several hundred feet the tracks were straight, or nearly so, and if the view were entirely unobstructed an engine or train approaching from the east could he seen and heard when several blocks or squares distant. The view was not wholly unobstructed, — a telephone pole, a derrick for hoisting machinery, fences near the tracks, and a watchman’s shanty [244]*244interfered to some extent with the view of trains coming from the east. The appellee began to look and listen for trains when he was about one square north of the crossing. Before he started over the tracks, he stopped his horse some ten feet north of the first track, and looked both east and west, and listened for approaching trains, but saw and heard none. He observed one train east of Missouri street, moving eastward on one of the tracks, its locomotive blowing oft steam and making considerable noise. Another engine was standing still at a point west of Missouri street. Appellee saw no train coming toward him, and heard no bell or noise indicating the approach of a train, and he started to cross the first track. Just as his horse was about to pass the north rail of the first track, appellee discovered a train near the switchman’s shanty, some 120 feet distant, coming toward him, as he thought, at a speed of from twenty-five to thirty miles an hour. He then had not time to go back or to get across the track. His buggy was struck by the locomotive, his horse was knocked or dragged down under the pilot of the engine, and the appellee was thrown out of the buggy and injured. The train, consisting of a locomotive and seven cars, was a heavy one, and was stopped within a space of from twenty to thirty feet from the point of collision with the buggy. The headlight on the 'locomotive was burning, and the bell was operated by air and rung automatically. The train was running at the rate of from eight to twenty miles per hour, and was within the corporate limits of the city. An ordinance prohibited the running of trains in the city at a greater rate of speed than four miles per hour.

Counsel for appellant say in their brief: “The evidence in this case clearly discloses that appellee was guilty of gross contributory negligence in driving upon the railroad track in front of an approaching train, which could have been seen and heard by him in ample time to have avoided the collision if he had looked and listened attentively when [245]*245at a safe distance from the crossing, or if he had heeded what he might have seen and heard before driving upon the crossing.”

In determining the question whether the trial court erred in holding that the evidence was sufficient to sustain the verdict, the power of this court is closely circumscribed by the rule that we can not weigh the evidence, which rule has been strictly adhered to in all previous cases. That question was in the first instance for the jury, and next for the judge of the'trial court upon the motion for a new trial. Where error is assigned upon the denial of the motion, the question presented on appeal is not one of fact but of law. If there is competent evidence upon which the verdict may rest,, this court can not consider conflicting views of its weight or credibility nor compare it with other evidence in the case which might justify a different conclusion. Deal v. State, 140 Ind. 354, 360.

In all the cases referred to by counsel for the appellant in which it is said that it is the duty of the court to set aside a verdict when it is against the weight of the evidence, the statement relates to the trial court, and not to this court on appeal. The rule by which this court is governed found forcible expression in Ft. Wayne, etc., R. Co. v. Husselman, 65 Ind. 73, 77, in which it is said: “Whether or not the evidence in any case is clear, or overwhelming, or conclusive, is a question for the jury trying the cause, and the judge presiding at such trial. When a jury have passed upon this question, and returned their verdict, and when the court, under whose eye and within whose hearing the evidence has been introduced and the cause has been tried, has refused to disturb the verdict upon the weight or sufficiency of the evidence, we are clearly of the opinion, that it is neither our province nor our duty to reverse the judgment of the trial court, merely because it may seem to us, from our reading of the record, that The evidence in support of the finding is clearly and overwhelmingly, or [246]*246conclusively contradicted.’ ” The jurisdiction of this court on appeal, as has been well said, is expressly limited to the correction of errors of law. Deal v. State, 140 Ind. 354, 358.

In reviewing the action of the trial court upon the denial of a motion for a new trial on the ground of the insufficiency of the evidence to sustain the verdict, the lack of evidence must be so clear and complete that it would have been the duty of the trial court, on proper request, to have directed a verdict for the party complaining of the decision.

In the case before us there are practically but two questions upon the evidence: Did the appellee exercise such care as a person of ordinary prudence would exercise under the same circumstances? Was the negligence of the appellant the proximate cause of the injury? The crossing, it may be conceded, was an unusually dangerous one. Missouri street was intersected by seven railroad tracks. The appellee was acquainted with the place, and knew that the tracks were there. As he drew near to the crossing he began to look and listen for trains while one square north of the first track. He stoq>ped his horse when within ten feet of the first track, and again looked both east and west, but neither saw nor heard any train moving toward him. It is true that the evidence showed that the track eastward was straight, or nearly so, and that from certain positions a traveler could see several hundred feet along its line; but there was also proof, and a good deal of it, that there were obstacles which prevented or interfered with such view. It appears that there was a watchman’s shanty only five feet from the north rail of the first track, 120 feet east of the Missouri street crossing. It was six and one-half feet wide and eight feet high.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
68 N.E. 170, 161 Ind. 242, 1903 Ind. LEXIS 158, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/cleveland-cincinnati-chicago-st-louis-railway-co-v-stewart-ind-1903.