Evansville & Terre Haute Railroad v. Krapf

36 N.E. 901, 143 Ind. 647, 1894 Ind. LEXIS 359
CourtIndiana Supreme Court
DecidedMarch 27, 1894
DocketNo. 16,558
StatusPublished
Cited by17 cases

This text of 36 N.E. 901 (Evansville & Terre Haute Railroad v. Krapf) 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
Evansville & Terre Haute Railroad v. Krapf, 36 N.E. 901, 143 Ind. 647, 1894 Ind. LEXIS 359 (Ind. 1894).

Opinion

McCabe, J.

This was a suit by the appellee against the appellant to recover damages on account of the [649]*649death of George J. Krapf, caused by the alleged negligence of appellant.

The complaint was in three paragraphs, a demurrer to each of which was overruled, and that ruling is assigned for error in this court. The first paragraph, omitting the formal parts, reads as follows: ‘ That the decedent, George J. Krapf, on the 29th day of July, 1890, and for thirty-seven years prior thereto, was an employe of the Indianapolis and St. Louis Railway Company as an engineer, and on said day, and for a long time prior thereto, was employed as a switch engineer in the switching yards of said railway company in the city of Terre Haute, Indiana; that on said day, and for many years prior thereto, there was an agreement and contract for a valuable consideration between the said railroad company and the said defendant, the Evansville-and Terre Haute Railroad Company, that all cars of defendant which should come into or be found in the yards of said Indianapolis and St. Louis Railway Company in said city should be delivered by said Indianapolis and St. Louis Railway Company to defendant in the switching yards of defendant in said city, and for said purpose the said Indianapolis and St. Louis Railway Company had the right and was accustomed, by the terms of said contract, to enter upon the land of said defendant at all hours; that pursuant to said agreement, on the day aforesaid, the decedent, by the direction of his employer, pulled a train of freight cars belonging to defendant from the yards of his employer to the yards of defendant for the purpose of delivering the same to defendant, the decedent acting at his post of duty as engineer of the engine attached thereto; that decedent run his said train into the said yards of defendant upon the main track thereof, as had been the custom to dó theretofore, as he had a right [650]*650and as it was his duty to do, and at a speed of about four miles per hour ; that upon the decedent’s entering the yards of the defendant, the said defendant backed a long train of freight cars toward the train of decedent and upon the same track upon which the train of the decedent was moving, and defendant’s train running at a speed of eight miles per hour; that decedent, seeing the said cars moving toward him, whistled for down brakes, signaled the approaching train to stop, and reversed his engine to stop his own train, and the engineer of defendant’s train, upon receiving the signal, reversed his engine, whereupon a cut of seven cars broke loose from defendant’s train, and, by their acquired momentum, ran into and against the engine of said decedent, who, remaining ‘at his post of duty, was caught in the wreck between the cab and water tank of his engine and killed without fault or negligence upon his part, but by reason of the negligent conduct of defendant in this, to-wit: That defendant was carelessly and negligently using in its train aforesaid, at the time aforesaid, a defective and worthless car, with a defective and insecure draw-bar therein, and a defective key in said draw-bar, and that the timbers to which said draw-bar was attached were decayed and rotten and insufficient for that purpose; that defendant had carelessly and negligently constructed said car, and had carelessly and negligently suffered the same to become defective and out of repair, and had carelessly and negligently used and suffered the said defective car and defective coupling to be used in making up said train upon the day aforesaid, by reason of all of which facts, when defendant’s engine was reversed, as aforesaid, the draw-bar in said defective car pulled out, the decayed timber of the car gave way, and the seven cars were [651]*651precipitated against the decedent, causing his death, as aforesaid. ”

It is contended that each of the paragraphs is" bad, because the allegations are not sufficient to show absence of contributory negligence on the part of the appellee’s decedent. To constitute a good cause of action for negligence resulting in a personal injury, two essential facts must be shown in the complaint.as concurring, namely, that the injury was caused by the negligence of the defendant and the absence of contributory negligence on the part of the plaintiff; that is, absence of contributory negligence on the part of the plaintiff is as much a part of his cause of action as the presence of negligence on the part of the defendant. It is contended by appellant that there is nothing in either of the three paragraphs of the complaint to show that the appellant’s backing train of freight cars was not in plain view of the deceased engineer, Krapf, in ample time to have enabled him to have stopped his train and avoided the collision, and thereby avoided all injury to himself; hence it is claimed that the absence of contributory negligence on the part of appellee’s decedent is not sufficiently shown in the complaint. But each paragraph states that the injury was inflicted without the fault or negligence of the appellee.

In Pittsburgh, etc., R. W. Co. v. Wright, 80 Ind. 182, at page 184, this court said : “The averment that the plaintiff was without fault is of a technical character, and admits of any legitimate proof by which its truth can be established; and; as matter of pleading, it makes the complaint good in that respect, against all mere inferences of contributory negligence, unless the inference arises as a necessary legal conclusion from the facts stated.” To the same effect are Town of Rushville v. Adams, 107 Ind. 475 (478); Town of Salem, [652]*652v. Goller, 76 Ind. 291; City of Fort Wayne v. DeWitt, 47 Ind. 391; Evansville, etc., R. R. Co. v. Crist, 116 Ind. 446 (449); City of Franklin v. Harter, 127 Ind. 447; Ohio, etc., R. W. Co. v. Walker, 113 Ind. 196; Louisville, etc., R. W. Co. v. Stommel, 126 Ind. 35 (37); City of Elkhart v. Witman, 122 Ind. 539 ; Pennsylvania Co. v. O’Shaughnessy, Admr., 122 Ind. 588; Louisville, etc., R. W. Co. v. Hanning, Admr., 131 Ind. 528; Stewart, Admx., v. Pennsylvania Co., 130 Ind. 242.

The facts alleged here do not necessarily raise any inference of contributory fault, and therefore do not overcome the technical allegation that the appellee was without fault on his part. That allegation would admit proof that the deceased was in such a situation on account of obstacles or otherwise that he could not see the approach of appellant’s train in time to avoid the collision and injury, and that he had no reason to anticipate the approach of such train. We, therefore, hold that the several paragraphs of the complaint sufficiently show the absence of contributory negligence on the part of appellee’s decedent.

It remains to inquire whether they, or any of them, sufficiently show negligence on the part of the appellant, causing the injury complained of.

The allegations of the first paragraph specifically confine the charge of negligence to the use of a car in the appellant’s train which was alleged to be worthless with rotten timbers, to which was attached a defective and insecure draw-bar.

There is nothing in the first paragraph of the complaint showing that the alleged resultant injury was produced by the use of the alleged defective draw-bar and coupling appliances; that is, nothing to show that without such use the injury would not have occurred. [653]

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Bluebook (online)
36 N.E. 901, 143 Ind. 647, 1894 Ind. LEXIS 359, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/evansville-terre-haute-railroad-v-krapf-ind-1894.