Galena & Chicago Union Railroad v. Jacobs

20 Ill. 478
CourtIllinois Supreme Court
DecidedApril 15, 1858
StatusPublished
Cited by48 cases

This text of 20 Ill. 478 (Galena & Chicago Union Railroad v. Jacobs) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Illinois Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Galena & Chicago Union Railroad v. Jacobs, 20 Ill. 478 (Ill. 1858).

Opinion

Breese, J.

Without recapitulating the facts of this case as they appear on the record, we will consider the instructions upon them as given and refused by the court below.

It is a case of negligence against a railroad company, the plaintiff being, at the time of the injury, but four and a half years of age.

The first instruction asked by the plaintiff below, was clearly objectionable, as it makes no reference to the evidence ; as modified by the court it does, but in other respects is not essentially different, but still remains objectionable.

We hold in all cases, an instruction, unless it be upon an abstract proposition of law, which the court may grant or refuse at its discretion, must have some evidence on which to base it, and spring out naturally from such evidence. Coughlin v. The People, 18 Ill. R. 266 ; Ewing v. Runkle, 20 Ill. R. 448.

In scanning the testimony in this case, after a critical and searching examination, we find no one witness deposing to one single fact or circumstance, giving any color to a permission to the plaintiff to be on the land of the defendant for any purpose whatever. There are no facts or circumstances sworn to from which such an inference can be rationally deduced, but, if we understand them, quite the contrary. All the instructions on behalf of the plaintiff are put by the court, on the ground of this express or implied permission on the part of the defendant to the plaintiff to be on their land, which was in their hourly and constant use, and as the case turns upon this, it requires a careful examination.

The evidence shows that Jacobs lived outside of the railroad grounds, at some considerable distance from the point where the injury took place, and to reach which point the- plaintiff would have to climb over or creep through three fences. Other persons, Irish, with their families, employees of the company, lived in shanties inside of the railroad inclosure—as many as five families—the head of one of them, Mrs. Kell, sworn for plaintiff, says she lived in the fifth shanty, that is, the one farthest west; Irish families lived in the other shanties; Dempsy lived in the second towards the cattle guard; those families had children there ; was acquainted with Mr. Dempsy’s family; had been at their house two days before the accident; had taken the little boys to her house twice before the accident, once two days before and once about a week before—the same children that were run over; their names are Frederick and William; showed them at her house something to make music, an instrument for children to play on. To this question of the plaintiff, “ how did people living inside of the railroad inclosure get backwards and forwards,” she answers, “ along the track; it was rather difficult walking there, they walked on the timber when they crossed the cattle guard.”

On her cross-examination she says, these children never went on the track there alone; they had been to her house twice; she went with them ; the parents both knew that the children went to her house; has two children herself, the oldest about twelve and the other about eight; don’t allow them to go on the railroad track; keeps watch of them to see they do not; don’t think it safe to allow them; Mr. Jacobs (the father) did not object to her taking his children to her house; he insisted that she should come back with them, and she did come back with them.

Among the mass of testimony in the case, this is all that has the slightest allusion or most remote reference to the fact that this child, the plaintiff, was ever on the railroad track at any time before he met with the injury, and how, from this, it can be inferred that the company or their agent knew it, and knowing it and not forbidding it, they therefore permitted it, when unattended, we cannot discover. It seems to us, as he was never on the track before without a prudent and cautious woman for his protector, both going and returning, the inference would be directly the other way; that a permission can only be implied that he might be there with a competent protector, not by himself. There does not seem to be anything on which to base the theory of implied permission. It surely cannot be drawn from the two occasions spoken of by Mrs. Kell, for the legitimate inference from them, and it should so have been put to the jury, is, that the child having never been on the track without a competent attendant, could not rightfully be upon it unattended.

But the court told the jury that they might infer a permission by the company to be on their track, from facts which establish its opposite; for going on the track with a careful and watchful attendant is the opposite, when done by a child not five years of age, of going there unattended.

This testimony shows too, that the father of the child, before he would permit him to go with Mrs. Kell, insisted that she should return with him, which she did.

These instructions, placing the case upon an implied permission of the defendant, in the absence of any evidence on which to base it, were erroneous. They must have controlled the finding of the jury, or contributed largely to it, for the idea of an implied permission being excluded, it is not probable such a verdict would have been rendered.

A court does not sit to see injustice done, or to permit it, nor is it restricted, in communicating with the jury, to the instructions asked on either side. It is the province of the court— their undisputed realm, in which to exert to the fullest extent this power—to impart instructions as to the law of the case, on the facts as the jury may find them to exist, and for that purpose, supply, by its own suggestions, any omission or want of observation of the counsel.

The plaintiff can derive no support or advantage from the fact that the employees of the railroad, with their families and children residing within the inclosure, were permitted by the company free ingress, egress and regress in and upon their track and land. This was a permission to special persons, for the benefit and necessities of the road, and cannot be extended to those not in this relation to the company.

Jacobs and his family lived outside of the railroad inclosfire, and some distance from the switch and the cattle guard, and the cabins or shanties where Mrs. Kell lived. He was not an employee of the company, but was a baker and kept a grocery, and could claim no such privilege for himself or children as the company awarded to their employees. Did he or any of his family have occasion to visit these shanties, it would have been his and their duty to go the way open and free to the public, and not use the track at any other place than at the usual crossing, and then only for the purpose of crossing. The railroad track is the exclusive property of the company, on which no unauthorized person has a right to be for any purpose; if there, it is at his own peril, under certain qualifications, which we will consider as we proceed.

As to the instructions asked by the defendant, some of which were modified and then given, we can only say that we have always considered the court was at liberty to modify an instruction, for the error could be assigned on refusing to give it as originally proposed. What we have said as to the plaintiff’s instructions apply to the fourth and thirteenth of defendant’s instructions, as modified, and in their modified form are objectionable.

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Bluebook (online)
20 Ill. 478, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/galena-chicago-union-railroad-v-jacobs-ill-1858.