Davis v. Powell

125 S.E. 751, 142 Va. 711, 1924 Va. LEXIS 3
CourtSupreme Court of Virginia
DecidedDecember 18, 1924
StatusPublished
Cited by7 cases

This text of 125 S.E. 751 (Davis v. Powell) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Virginia primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Davis v. Powell, 125 S.E. 751, 142 Va. 711, 1924 Va. LEXIS 3 (Va. 1924).

Opinions

Chichester, J.,

delivered the opinion of the court.

The defendant in error, Curtis Powell, was plaintiff in the trial court, and will be hereinafter referred to as the plaintiff. The plaintiff in error was defendant in the trial court, and will be hereinafter referred to as the defendant.

The notice of motion was originally instituted against the Chesapeake and Qhio Railway Company for dam-, ages sustained by the plaintiff on February 2, 1918, because of alleged negligence on the part of the said company when it was under Federal control. Before trial of the ease, James C. Davis, the then Director General of Railroads, as such, was made defendant to the notice of motion.

The Chesapeake and Ohio Railway Company is an interstate system, engaged in interstate commerce, and hence the Federal employers’ liability act (U. S. Comp. St. sections 8657-8665) controls the ease.

The plaintiff was employed by the defendant, for a period of more than four months prior to the injury of which he complains, as a section hand under a foreman, L. E. Minter, who had been in the employ of the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway Company for many years. The section of track which Minter and the hands under him had been engaged in repairing for some weeks lies between the stations of Palmyra and Troy, in Fluvanna county. The daily routine was to leave Palmyra (where Minter lived, and where the gasoline motor truck, upon [716]*716which the section hands rode to their work, was kept during the night) in the early morning about seven o’clock, just behind a passenger train which was due at Palmyra a few minutes before this hour. The point at which the trackmen were working was near Wildwood, about four miles from Troy and about three miles from Palmyra.

On the morning of the accident, the passenger train which foreman Minter usually followed out from Palmyra was late, and he went to the phone, as he expressed it, “for his orders.” He ascertained that a freight train known as the “Bull Dog Special,” running light, which had not then reached Troy, would meet the passenger train at Rockaway, a telegraph station about one and one-balf miles west of Palmyra. Minter’s testimony on this point is brief, uneontradicted in its essential features, and is as follows:

“Q. Was that train ever late?
“A. Yes, sir.
“Q. Well, when it is late what was your custom?
“A. Oh, I would go to work. I would get orders, and find out how much late it is, and if I have time to get to my work I go to work.
“Q. I believe you testified you phoned?
“A. Yes, sir; I do it every morning. I cannot afford to go out here and take a risk against these trains around these bluffs without doing it.
“ Q. And you did it on that morning?
“A. Yes, sir; I keep the keys for that purpose.
“Q. Where did you phone?
“A. I phoned to a telegraph station. They knew exactly where the trains were.
“Q. What station?
“A. Troy.
[717]*717“Q. And what did they tell you?
“A. They said it was late; and that it would meet this extra at Roekaway; and that the extra had not passed Troy at that time. And I knew that I would have time to get to my work.
“Q. Where were you going?
“A. Just above Wildwood.
“Q. How far is that from Troy?
“A. Four miles.
“Q. How far is it from here?
“A. Three miles.”

Having performed the duty of ascertaining as near as possible where the trains were, he took his force and set out upon his journey.

The evidence shows that the motor truck used to transport the hands to and from their work was of the usual type used for this purpose, and that it had been used practically every day during the plaintiff’s employment for the purpose. It showed that the railroad track over which it passed had numerous curves and that it ran in and out among the hills and bluffs, and that the way was, by nature, somewhat hazardous for employees who were compelled to go to their work as these employees were.

After the station called Roekaway, where the passenger and freight trains were scheduled to meet, had been passed and all danger from the passenger train overtaking the motor truck had ceased, the accident which resulted in the plaintiff’s injury occurred.

Minter was operating the motor car, sitting on the left hand side at the rear. The plaintiff was sitting on the right side of the ear in front, and under Minter’s direction keeping a lookout ahead for approaching trains. Tom Berkeley, another employee, who was deceased at the time of the trial, was sitting by plaintiff’s side, while [718]*718Robert Payne and Robert Walker, the other employees, were sitting on the left side of the car with their backs to plaintiff’s and Berkeley’s. Minter testified that the maximum speed prescribed by the rules of the company at which the motor truck should be run was twenty miles per hour. Up to this point there is no material conflict in the testimony.

Minter, Payne and Walker all testify that as the ear was passing through a cut and was rounding a curve which bore to the left and going at a speed not exceeding fifteen miles per hour, the plaintiff either fell or jumped from the motor ear upon the track between the rails in front of it, and was run over and injured. They testified that after the motor car had been stopped a rail, or a rail and a half, length ahead, and plaintiff had been helped up and walked with some assistance to a crossing just ahead of where the accident happened, some five or six rail lengths, and after the motor car had been pushed forward to the crossing and removed to the side, the freight train passed by and did not stop, and that some time thereafter the passenger train passed.

They and others testify that the plaintiff stated to them immediately after the accident and before he was carried to the hospital, that he did not know “how it happened — the only way he could arrive at it, that he was not holding on, and that he just became overbalanced and fell off, that he did not attach any blame to anybody.”

The plaintiff’s testimony at the trial as to how the accident happened is in direct conflict with all the other eye witnesses. As far as it is pertinent to this discussion, he testified:

“Q. Now, will you tell the jury in your own words what happened after yoii got on the car, until the time that you were hurt, if you were hurt, and how you were hurt?
[719]*719“A. Well, I got on the hand ear that morning and started np the track towards Wildwood, and on my way there I met a train, and Mr. Minter was running awfully rapid, and I saw the train approaching, and I told him the train was coming; and as soon as I said the train was coming, he cut the engine off from working and applied the brake, and it just pitched me off forward; that jerk.
“Q.

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Bluebook (online)
125 S.E. 751, 142 Va. 711, 1924 Va. LEXIS 3, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/davis-v-powell-va-1924.