Flint's Admr. v. Central Vermont Railway Co.

73 A. 590, 82 Vt. 269, 1909 Vt. LEXIS 286
CourtSupreme Court of Vermont
DecidedJuly 2, 1909
StatusPublished
Cited by13 cases

This text of 73 A. 590 (Flint's Admr. v. Central Vermont Railway Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Vermont primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Flint's Admr. v. Central Vermont Railway Co., 73 A. 590, 82 Vt. 269, 1909 Vt. LEXIS 286 (Vt. 1909).

Opinion

Watson, J.

At the close of the plaintiff’s evidence, the defendant moved for a verdict on the grounds (1) that there was no evidence tending to show negligence on the part of the defendant, and (2) that the undisputed and uneonflicting evidence showed contributory negligence on the part of the intestate. The case is here on exception to the overruling of this motion. The facts herein stated appear from or are supported by the evidence.

The intestate, a man about seventy-two years of age, while driving across defendants’ railroad track at a highway crossing at West Berlin in the afternoon of May 18, 1905, was struck by defendants’ engine drawing the mail train, so-called, northbound, and instantly killed. The train was running at about schedule rate of speed, forty-five miles an hour. The depot at that place is a building about twenty-five feet in length and a little less than that in width. It stands sixty-two feet south of the crossing where the intestate was killed, wholly on the east [272]*272side of the main track and about nine feet from the east rail. There is a platform toward the track extending north and south beyond the building, the whole length of which is one hundred thirty-four feet. The northerly end of this platform comes to the highway. West Berlin is not a regular stopping place for any passenger trains. It is a flag station for some trains, but the one in question never stops there except to leave passengers coming from beyond Springfield, which happens only two or three times a year, and perhaps not at all for a year, — “once in a great while. ’ ’

By section 3921 of Vermont Statutes, “If a person having control of a detached engine or an engine with a passenger train of cars attached, runs such engine or such passenger train into or through a passenger depot at a speed exceeding four miles an hour, he shall be fined ten dollars.” Counsel for plaintiff contend that as the train at the time in question was being run at a greater rate of speed than is permitted by this statute, if not negligence as a matter of law it must at least be a circumstance which constitutes some evidence of negligence on the part of the defendant, citing Kilpatrick v. Grand Trunk Railway Co., 72 Vt. 263, 47 Atl. 827, 82 Am. St. Rep. 939; same case, 74 Vt. 288, 52 Atl. 531, 93 Am. St. Rep. 887; Grand Trunk Railway Co. v. Ives, 144 U. S. 408, 36 L. ed. 485, 12 Sup. Ct. 679; and other cases. Except that this section of the statute is applicable no claim is made that the speed of the train was excessive.

The law of section 3921 was first enacted in I860.- At that time there were in this State and hitherto have been passenger depots so constructed as to cover over the main tracks of the railroad, into and through which trains running on such tracks must pass. We think that statute was intended to apply only to such depots. It is difficult to see how the words “into or through” as there used can have reference to passenger depots of any other construction. “Into” is there used in the sense of inside of; within. It expresses entrance, or a passing from the outside of a thing to its interior parts. The word “through” means from end to end, or from side to side of; into or out of at the opposite, or at another point; between the sides or walls of; within; as to pass through a door, or to go through an avenue. See Webster’s International Dictionary.

[273]*273The intestate was a peddler driving a single horse hitched to an open wagon with a small box containing his goods fitted into the rear end of the wagon body. East of the crossing in question, the highway over which he was travelling is a gradual ascent to the railroad. At a distance of three hundred twenty-eight feet east of the east rail, a person travelling over the highway toward the crossing has a plain view of the railroad track from the depot southerly some fifteen hundred or sixteen hundred feet. The track there is elevated considerably above the level of the land and is in plain view for the whole distance to the crossing except as the vision is obstructed by the depot. Going westerly from a point in the middle of the road forty-one feet east of the east rail to the crossing, the view of the track southerly is thus obstructed until within twenty-four feet of the east rail. There the track can be seen past the westerly end of the building for a distance of one hundred fifteen feet; at twenty feet from the east rail, the track is visible for a distance of one hundred sixty and one-half feet; and when within sixteen feet, the track is in full view practically as far southerly as it is from any place hereinbefore named.

It was conceded by the plaintiff in argument that all signals required by law and more were given on the train. When the engine was about half way between the whistling post for the crossing and the station the engineer, looking beyond the depot on its easterly side, saw the intestate on the highway driving toward the railroad. Thereupon he sounded a second whistle for the crossing. The team about the same time went behind the depot and was seen no more by the engineer until it was on the crossing in front of the engine.

It is argued that the engineer should have seen the team after it came in view on the westerly side of the depot before it went on the crossing and in season to have prevented the accident, and that a failure so to do is a circumstance from which a jury may infer negligence. We will assume, without deciding, this to be so and pass to the question of contributory negligence.

The undisputed evidence shows that the intestate’s senses of sight and hearing were good; that he was in good health and very active; that the day of the accident was warm and pleasant and there was nothing over his ears to prevent him from hearing; that the horse he was driving was twelve or thirteen years old, [274]*274very quiet, easy to manage, and not easily frightened by a train of ears or anything; and that during the last six or seven years of his life he averaged to drive over the crossing in question once in four or five weeks, by reason of which he was acquainted with the railroad in that vicinity, also with the crossing and its surroundings. The horse was walking at a fair gait in the middle of the road as it went past the depot and approached the crossing. The intestate was looking at the horse and did not look up the track southerly until the horse was partly on the crossing. When the horse was some five or ten feet from the track, two witnesses who were on the opposite side of the track and a short distance away, saw the intestate driving toward the crossing and hallooed to him saying “The cars are coming,“ at the same time throwing up their hands to attract his attention; but the noise from the train was such that the witnesses were not sure that he heard their voices, nor did they know that he saw their demonstrations. The point where the intestate’s view was first obstructed by the depot is about forty-one feet east of the east rail, and from there in the middle of the travelled road, the track is visible six hundred feet southerly, and a moving train of cars can be seen one thousand feet further. When the intestate was sixteen feet from the east rail, the approaching train must have been plainly in view, and the horse yet a distance of four feet from the nearest rail. A stop might have been made at this place of safety until the train had passed.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
73 A. 590, 82 Vt. 269, 1909 Vt. LEXIS 286, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/flints-admr-v-central-vermont-railway-co-vt-1909.