Faulkner v. New York Central Railroad

232 Ill. App. 346, 1924 Ill. App. LEXIS 86
CourtAppellate Court of Illinois
DecidedMarch 10, 1924
DocketGen. No. 28,408
StatusPublished

This text of 232 Ill. App. 346 (Faulkner v. New York Central Railroad) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Appellate Court of Illinois primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Faulkner v. New York Central Railroad, 232 Ill. App. 346, 1924 Ill. App. LEXIS 86 (Ill. Ct. App. 1924).

Opinion

Mr. Justice Johnston

delivered the opinion of the court.

This is an appeal by the defendant, The New York Central Railroad Company, from a judgment in the sum of $7,500 in an action under the Federal Employers’ Liability Act, brought by plaintiff, as administratrix, for the death of her husband, Clyde M. Faulkner, alleged to have been caused by the negligence of the defendant.

The negligence charged against the defendant is that the engineer of the defendant negligently operated one of its passenger engines and thereby caused Faulkner’s death. Faulkner was a switchman employed by the defendant and had been working for the defendant about eight months. He had worked as a switchman for other railroads for about eleven years altogether. He was killed at 53rd street in the City of Chicago on February 1, 1921. On that day he was working in connection with a switch engine of the defendant. Fifty-third street is an east and west street. Running north from 53rd street are six parallel main tracks of the defendant and another railroad, which are numbered, beginning with the east track, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6; track No. 1 was used for northbound freight of the defendant, track No. 2 for southbound freight of the defendant, track No. 3 for northbound passenger trains of the defendant, track No. 4 for southbound passenger trains of the defendant and tracks Nos. 5 and 6 were used by the other railroad. Faulkner was on track No. 2 when he was killed. He had crossed to that track from track No. 1 after alighting from the switch engine which was backing south on track No. 1, pulling some empty freight cars. The distance between track No. 1 and track No. 2 was 8 feet. Before Faulkner alighted he had been on the west side of the footboard of the switch engine. On the south end of the first ear within “touching distance” of Faulkner there was another switchman named Boss. About 30 feet north of the place where Faulkner .got off the switch engine, Boss had alighted to throw a switch on the east side of track No. 1 to allow the switch engine with the cars to go north on tract No. 1. The switch was north of the viaduct at 53rd street and east of track No. 1. A passenger engine was being backed south on track No. 2. This engine struck Faulkner and killed him. At the time of the accident there were ten cars loaded with coal standing on track No. 1 north of the switch.

The facts will be more particularly stated in connection with the questions raised by the defendant.

The principal grounds on which the defendant asks for a reversal are, first, that the defendant was not guilty of negligence; second, that Faulkner, the deceased, was negligent and that his negligence was the sole proximate cause of his death; and, third, that the weight of the evidence is against the verdict.

The specific acts of negligence of the defendant on which counsel for the plaintiff relies are that the defendant’s engineer did not keep a proper lookout, did not give proper warning by ringing the bell or blowing the whistle, and did not run at the proper rate of speed.

In arguing the contention that the defendant was not guilty of negligence, counsel for the defendant maintain “that the present accident was the result of one of the ordinary risks of the deceased’s employment, within his knowledge and contemplation when the service began.” Counsel for the defendant further explicitly contend “that deceased at the time he was injured had, as a matter of law, assumed the risks of his employment, and that in consequence thereof the questions as to whether a lookout was kept, whether the bell was ringing or a warning given, or whether a reduced rate of speed was maintained, were immaterial to the issues between the parties.” The contention of counsel for the defendant would require us to hold, as a matter of law, that the deceased assumed as ordinary risks of his employment that no lookout would be kept, no bell would be rung or warning given, and that the speed would not be reduced. In our opinion the contention of counsel for the defendant is not correct. "We cannot assume that the things which counsel for the defendant enumerate as ordinary risks are, as a matter of law, ordinary risks. The evidence relating to those questions is not undisputed, and the conclusions to be drawn from the evidence may be reasonably different. Those questions are, therefore, questions of fact for the jury. Sturm v. Consolidated Coal Co., 248 Ill. 20, 27, 28; Indiana, I. & I. R. Co. v. Otstot, 212 Ill. 429, 434.

Under the Federal Employers’ Liability Act the fellow-servant doctrine is not available as a defense. Devine v. Chicago, R. I. & P. Ry. Co., 266 Ill. 248, 253; DeBaur v. Lehigh Valley R. Co., 269 Fed. 964, 966.

The Federal Employers’ Liability Act places a co-employee’s negligence, when it is the ground of the action, in the same relation as that of the employer at common law to his employee in regard to the assumption of risk by the employee. That relation at common law requires the employer to use reasonable care for the protection of his employees. Himrod Coal Co. v. Clark, 197 Ill. 514, 516; Bonato v. Peabody Coal Co., 248 Ill. 422, 425. It has been expressly held under the Federal Employers’ Liability Act that the employer owes to his employee the duty of exercising ordinary care for his employee’s safety. DeBaur v. Lehigh Valley R. Co., supra; Reed v. Director General of Railroads, 258 U. S. 92, 95.

The act permits a recovery for a death resulting in whole or in part from the negligence of an employer’s officers, agents or employees. DeBaur v. Lehigh Valley R. Co., supra.

At common law the employee assumed not only the ordinary risks incident to his employment, but also all dangers which are obvious and apparent. McCormick Harvesting Machine Co. v. Zakzewski, 220 Ill. 522, 530; Bonato v. Peabody Coal Co., supra. But he did not assume, as one of the ordinary risks, the noncompliance of the employer with the employer’s duty to provide a reasonably safe place for the employee to work. Bonato v. Peabody Goal Co., supra. It is the rule that “An employee does not assume all the risks incident to his employment, but only to such as are usual, ordinary, and remain so incident after the master has taken reasonable care to prevent or remove them, or if extraordinary, such as are so obvious and expose him to danger so imminent that an ordinarily prudent and careful man would anticipate injury as so probable that in view of it he would not enter upon or remain in the employment.” Chicago & A. R. Co. v. House, 172 Ill. 601, 605.

It is also the rule that “A servant does not assume the risk of a negligent manner of doing work by other servants, who are not fellow-servants, unless it is customary to do the work in that manner” (Chicago & E. I. R. Co. v. White, 209 Ill. 124, 132; Gathman v. City of Chicago, 236 Ill. 9, 17); and unless the servant has knowledge of the habitual or customary negligence of such other servant. Hartley v. Chicago & A. R. Co., 197 Ill. 440, 445, 446.

On the principles dedncible from the foregoing authorities, the question whether the defendant was guilty of negligence in the case at bar was a question of fact for the jury.

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Bluebook (online)
232 Ill. App. 346, 1924 Ill. App. LEXIS 86, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/faulkner-v-new-york-central-railroad-illappct-1924.