Herring v. Louisville & Nashville R. R.

70 So. 749, 195 Ala. 422, 1915 Ala. LEXIS 390
Supreme Court of Alabama·Decided December 16, 1915·Published·Cited by 7 cases

Opinion

MAYFIELD, J.

Plaintiff, while a trespasser on defendant’s track, was injured by a passing train; and he seeks to recover damages for the injuries received. The complaint contained two counts — the first declaring specifically on subsequent negligence, the second, on wanton or willful injury. The court gave the affirmative charge for the defendant as to the second count, and the jury found for the defendant as to the first count; and plaintiff prosecutes this appeal. Appellant assigns many errors as to the refusal of charges requested by the plaintiff, and as to the giving of various charges requested by defendant.

The court properly directed the verdict as to the second count. There is certainly no evidence in this record tending to [424] establish wanton or intentional injury, as alleged. The plaintiff being concededly a trespasser on the defendant’s track, from the time he went upon it up to the very instant of his injury, and never having attempted to avoid the injury by either stopping, looking, or listening, for trains, but running heedlessly down the track on the ends of the crossties until he was injured, cannot recover, in the absence of wanton or willful wrong. The plaintiff’s negligence in this case, under his own evidence, continued up to the very instant of his injury, and of necessity, and as a matter of fact and of law, both theoretically and practically, it must have been either subsequent to or concurrent with any simple negligence of the defendant. There was no instant when plaintiff’s negligence ceased, and he exercised due care, after which any possible negligence of the defendant could have produced the injury. If he had seen or heard the train, and had attempted to escape the danger, but for some reason could not do so, and the defendant, while or after plaintiff was using due and proper care to avoid injury, was guilty of simple negligence which proximately contributed to the injury complained of, then the plaintiff could recover as for subsequent negligence; but no such case is presented here.

In McWhorter’s Case, 156 Ala. 279, 47 South. 84, the person injured was not a trespasser; he was a flagman, and had a right to be on the tracks for the purpose of flagging the trains, but while on the track he went to sleep, or the evidence tended to show this fact, and the court in that case said: “There was evidence from which the jury could infer that the intestate had fallen asleep, and was not, therefore, conscious of the impending danger, and that a loud blast or blasts of the whistle might have aroused him, and warned him of the approach of the train in time to escape, and which would have required but a slight degree of time and space.”

¡The facts in this case are different: Here there never was a moment, from the time the boy went upon the track until he was struck, when he was not conscious of his danger; each step upon the track was made with the conscious knowledge that he was a trespasser, and therefore a tort-feasor, and liable to be hit by passing trains. His negligence was not less, but greater, at the moment he was hit, than it was when he went upon the track. His negligence consisted, not in his mere going upon the [425] track — he had a right to do that, if it was for the purpose of crossing — but in traveling along the track, because in that event he knew it was only a question of time before he would be overtaken by a train, and knew that this time was growing shorter each instant he remained on the track. It was as much, or more, his duty to look and listen for approaching trains the instant he was struck as it was the instant he went upon the track. Surely it cannot be said that if a man goes upon a railroad track, and walks or runs upon it, without looking or listening for trains, until he is overtaken or met by a train, and injured, he is guilty of but one act of negligence, and that is going on the track and then and there failing to stop, look, and listen for approaching trains. If the contrary were true, then it would follow that if he is not injured at the instant he goes upon the track, but is subsequently injured by simple negligence after his peril is discovered, his negligence is no defense; that is to say, if he should remain on the track for a moment, and his peril be discovered by the engineer, who tries to stop the train, instead of sounding the alarm, or does vice versa, when a skilled engineer would have done the other, the railroad company would be liable, unless the continuing wrongdoer actually sees or hears the train, and thus actually becomes conscious of his imminent peril from that particular train. This will not do, because, if he actually knows of the immediate approach of the particular train, and, taking no heed thereof, consciously thereafter remains on the track until he is hit, this would be a wrongful act, but not a negligent act. His wrong in remaining on the track under such conditions would be voluntary and willful, and if he is killed it would clearly be a case of suicide. His act o¡r wrong after becoming conscious of the immediate approach of the train and the impending danger, in order to be negligent,, would be to do the wrong thing, or to be guilty of some negligence by remaining on the track with no effort to escape.

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Herring v. Louisville & Nashville R. R., 70 So. 749, 195 Ala. 422, 1915 Ala. LEXIS 390 (Ala. 1915).

70 So. 749 (Herring v. Louisville & Nashville R. R.) — published by Counsel Stack Legal Research, free access to 12M+ legal documents.

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