Fort Smith Light & Traction Co. v. Hendrickson

189 S.W. 1064, 126 Ark. 377, 1916 Ark. LEXIS 250
CourtSupreme Court of Arkansas
DecidedNovember 13, 1916
StatusPublished
Cited by4 cases

This text of 189 S.W. 1064 (Fort Smith Light & Traction Co. v. Hendrickson) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Arkansas primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Fort Smith Light & Traction Co. v. Hendrickson, 189 S.W. 1064, 126 Ark. 377, 1916 Ark. LEXIS 250 (Ark. 1916).

Opinion

Hakt, J.

(after stating the facts). It is insisted by counsel for appellant that the court erred in giving instructions numbered 7 and 8 at the request of appellee. The instructions read as follows:

“7. If the evidence shows that defendant’s motorman did not hear the approach of the fire wagon upon which plaintiff was riding, in time to stop his car, before the wagon was struck, if it was struck, yet if the jury believes from the evidence that he could in the exercise of ordinary care have heard the approach of said fire wagon in time to stop his car before the collision and that his failure to hear the approach of the fire wagon was not due to the fact that it could not be heard, but to the fact that on account of his failure to listen, he did not hear same, and that he could have heard same in time to stop the car if he had listened, with ordinary care and attention, then t¿e motorman was guilty of negligence in the operation of the car.”
“8. If the jury believe from the evidence that a fire alarm was given by the ringing of fire bells or by gongs attached to the hose cart or fire wagons, and that the motorman, operating the street car at the time of such alarm, heard such alarm before colliding with the fire wagon, provided he might reasonably apprehend that fire wagon was moving toward such car track, then it was his duty to stop the car until said fire apparatus passed, or until he ascertained that same was not moving in such direction as to interfere with the car. If the jury believe from the evidence, he could have heard same in time to stop the car before a collision if he had been listening with ordinary care and attention, the defendant is held to the same duty as if the motorman did in fact hear the alarm.”

(1) It will be remembered that there was a city ordinance which provides that when a fire gong is sounded all street cars shall be required to stop running until fire wagons shall have passed. It is insisted that the instructions, in effect, told the jury that it was the duty of the motorman to stop the ear upon hearing the approach of the fire wagon, or if in the exercise of ordinary care he could have heard the same and that a violation of this dutjr as provided by the ordinance was negligence. In other words it is insisted that the instructions are open to the same objection as those condemned in the case of Bain v. Fort Smith Light & Traction Company, 116 Ark. 125. We do not agree with counsel in this contention. The instructions set out above were not designed to cover the same field as those criticised in the Bain case. In the Bain case the court said that in a common law action against the street railway company for an injury alleged to have been caused by the company’s negligence, if at the time of the injury the street car producing it is being operated in a manner that violated an ordinance of the city, such fact may be shown as tending to establish the allegations of negligence: The court held, however, that it would be erroneous to tell the jury that the operation of street cars in violation of a city ordinance was negligence as a matter of law. In the present case, at the request of appellant, the court expressly told the jury that the failure of appellant to comply with the city ordinance in question did not create a liability against appellant, but that it could be considered in measuring the care required of the respective operatives of the street car and fire apparatus. Moreover, in the instructions given at the request of appellee, the jury was specifically told that the ordinance in question did not create a liability against appellant and that if in the exercise of ordinary care the motorman should have known of the approach of the fire wagon and that such failure caused the accident, then such failure to obey such ordinance was a circumstance which the jury might consider in determining whether the company was or was not guilty of negligence. The instructions complained of were not directed against the violation of the ordinance in question; they had no reference to that phase of the case.

This was a common law action for negligence and the instructions , complained of were directed toward what the jury might find constituted negligence on the part of appellant. They made no reference whatever to the ordinance in question and their correctness must be tested as if no such ordinance existed. It is well settled that it is not practicable that the court should state all the propositions of law involved in a case in one instruction. Where the whole law can not be embodied in one proposition, it is better that the instruction should not conclude in “find for the plaintiff” or “find for the defendant,” as the case may be. These instructions were not open to that objection. Instruction No. 7 simply told the jury that if they found certain facts to exist, then the motorman was guilty of negligence in the operation of the car. Instruction No. 8 was on the duty of the appellant. Both the instructions would have been just as appropriate if the fire wagon had been any other sort of a wagon.

It is true that street cars from necessity must travel on their tracks but persons crossing the tracks at. a street crossing are not trespassers. Street car companies must anticipate that persons and vehicles will cross their tracks at street crossings, and their motorman must use ordinary care to discover them. What would be ordinary care would depend upon the circumstances of the particular case. Where there was nothing to obstruct the view the motorman might see persons about to cross the street, and it would not be necessary for him to listen. In the present case it was the contention of appellant that there was a building right up to the property line, and that this prevented the motorman from seeing the fire wagon. In other words, the only way the motorman could know of the approach of the fire wagon was by listening. Hence the instructions are not faulty because they only deal with the failure of the motorman to hear the approaching fire wagon. In short, it was not necessary to submit to the jury the question of whether he could have seen the fire wagon, for it was the contention of appellant that he could not have seen ft and the testimony on this point is undisputed.

(2) It is next insisted that the court erred in -permitting certain witnesses to testify that on subsequent days they were on one of appellant’s street cars at the same point at which the accident occurred and heard the ringing of gongs and the sounding of the fire wagons on the pavement as they left the fire station in question in this case. Counsel based their right to exclude this evidence on the ruling of the court in the case of Ward v. Fort Smith Light & Traction Co., 123 Ark. 548. We do not- think that case sustains the contention of counsel. There the plaintiff offered to prove that the witness had had a race with a street car at another time, and place, and that this car had passed his automobile while his automobile was gifting at the rate o'f thirty-eight miles per hour. The testimony was rejected because it was not shown that the cars were geared in the same way as the car under consideration in that ease, or that they were so constructed that they would naturally have the same speed. For that reason we held that the excluded evidence related to collateral transactions and would tend to confuse the issues.

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Related

Riddell v. Little
488 S.W.2d 34 (Supreme Court of Arkansas, 1972)
Moore v. State
479 S.W.2d 857 (Supreme Court of Arkansas, 1972)
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25 A.2d 392 (Superior Court of Delaware, 1942)
Miller v. Fort Smith Light & Traction Co.
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Bluebook (online)
189 S.W. 1064, 126 Ark. 377, 1916 Ark. LEXIS 250, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/fort-smith-light-traction-co-v-hendrickson-ark-1916.