Hickey v. Chicago City Railway Co.

148 Ill. App. 197, 1909 Ill. App. LEXIS 260
CourtAppellate Court of Illinois
DecidedMarch 9, 1909
DocketGen. No. 14,324
StatusPublished
Cited by4 cases

This text of 148 Ill. App. 197 (Hickey v. Chicago City Railway Co.) 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
Hickey v. Chicago City Railway Co., 148 Ill. App. 197, 1909 Ill. App. LEXIS 260 (Ill. Ct. App. 1909).

Opinions

Mr. Justice Chytraus

delivered the opinion of the court.

Plaintiff in error questions the correctness of the giving of many of the instructions herein. A consideration of the principles of law applicable to the various aspects of the case will enable us more readily to determine upon the correctness and applicability of the principles of law in these instructions. There are several distinct issues or propositions of law and of fact involved. Some uncontroverted propositions of fact seem, in the instructions, to have been treated as controverted. Such instructions should never be offered by counsel, as they clearly have a tendency to confuse and to mislead the jury as to what the facts are, in some instances even to the extent of requiring a reversal. The defendant’s negligence is here undisputed. The injury was caused by the fact that the car jumped oft the -track and' collided with another car. There is no attempt to exonerate the company from responsibility for this occurrence by showing that it was caused by something beyond its control or that the occurrence could not have been prevented by the exercise of the highest degree of care consistent with the practical operation of the road, which is the degree of care required of a carrier for-its passengers. Where a car or train of a carrier is derailed or collides with another of its trains, or with some object under the control of the carrier, a presumption of negligence arises and places upon the carrier the burden of exoneration.

1. If decedent gave the conductor a transfer slip and received from him another, then the relation of passenger and carrier was established. In such event the question remains, however, whether decedent, in taking the place he did take upon the car, was guilty of contributory negligence so that thereby he relieved the defendant from responsibility for its negligence.

In view of the arguments and the facts of this case, this remaining question is again divisible into two parts, viz.: (a) Was there on the part of the decedent, in occupying that place, an assumption (using that term in its contractual sense as used in connection with the relation of master and servant) of the risk of this carrier of passengers injuring decedent, a passenger, by its negligence? and (b) Can, in contemplation of law, negligence be attributed to a passenger injured by his carrier’s negligence, where the cause of injury could have been avoided by the carrier exercising ordinary care and when the passenger in nowise participated in or contributed to occasion or bring about the act of negligence itself?

(a) For two good and sufficient reasons there is no room for the application of the contractual doctrine of assumption of risk in this case, as existing in connection with the relation of master and servant. In the first place, in that relation, when entering into the contract of employment and as part of that contract, the servant assumes the risks ordinarily incident to the employment which are open and obvious, but he does not assume the risk of injury from acts of negligence by the master. As to this exception from the risks assumed in that relation our Supreme Court in Hansell-Elcock Foundry Co. v. Clark, 214 Ill. 399, 406, quoted and approved of the following statement: “The rule that the servant assumes the ordinary risks incident to the business presupposes that the master has performed the duties of caution, care and vigilance which the law casts upon him.” As early as in the case of C. & N. W. R. R. Co. v. Swett, 45 Ill. 197, 202, our Supreme Court held: “The principle, that the master is not responsible for injuries occasioned by one servant to another, is only applicable, as the authorities show, where the injury complained of happens without the fault of the master, either in the act which caused the injury or in the employment of the person who caused it.” Injury by a fellow-servant’s carelessness is one of the risks assumed by the servant. That injury, occasioned through the master’s own negligence, is never a risk assumed by the servant is firmly settled in this state. La Salle v. Kostka, 190 Ill. 131, 135; Belvedere G. & E. Co. v. Boyer, 122 Ill. App. 116, 119; Wells v. O’Hare, 209 Ill. 627; Slack v. Harris, 200 Ill. 96, 108; Street’s S. C. L. v. Bonander, 196 Ill. 15, 19. In Belvedere G. & E. Co. v. Boyer, Mr. Justice Farmer, now of our Supreme Court, speaking for the court, said: “The servant has a right to assume that the master has performed and will continue to perform the duty he owes the servant to use the care and vigilance required by law to furnish and keep the place where the employe is required to work reasonably safe.” In C. & N. W. R. R. Co. v. Swett, supra, the court laid it down as a rule with reference to railways, in their relation both to their servants and to their passengers, that (p. 203) “They are bound to furnish a safe road, and sufficient and safe machinery and cars.” In the next place, as already stated, the assumption of risk doctrine is one founded upon the implication of a contract. ■ It is too well settled to need the citation of authority that a common carrier cannot, by express contract, relieve himself from liability for damages resulting from his negligence. The law does not permit it, because to so permit is held to be contrary to public policy. As he may not absolve himself from liability for his negligence by an express contract, much less will the law suffer him to escape from the consequences of his negligence by invoking the doctrine of implied contract to aid him. When decedent, being a passenger, took the place he occupied at the time of the collision, he did not thereby contract to discharge the company from the duty it owed him of protection from its own acts of negligent operation of defective cars or the operation of cars upon defective rails. There was here no assumption by the decedent of any risk resulting from negligence by the defendant company.

(b) The next question is whether, he being a passenger, negligence can be attributed to the decedent. Decedent must be regarded as having contributed, by his mere presence where he was, to the result of the carrier’s negligence upon himself; but he did not contribute in or to the act of negligence or to causing that act. No act of negligence of the decedent either concurred in or co-operated to bring about the defendant’s conceded act of negligence. The defendant claims contributory negligence on the part of decedent. But unless we find negligence, under the law, on the part of decedent, there was no contributory negligence. Negligence is the violation of the duty enjoining care and caution in what we do. The duty is, however, a relative one; and where it has no existence toward a particular party there can be no such thing as negligence in the legal sense of the term. Towanda R. R. Co. v. Munger, 5 Denio, 255, 266. In Aurora Branch R. R. Co. v. Grimes, 13 Ill. 585, 588, the Supreme Court said: ‘6 The degree of care which the plaintiff is bound to exercise mil be found to depend upon the relative rights or position of the parties in relation to the rights exercised or position enjoyed by the plaintiff at the time the injury complained of happened.”

The reason given in the books why, in cases of mutual, concurring negligence, neither party can maintain an action against the other, is not that the wrong of the one is set off against the wrong of the other; it is that the law cannot measure how much of the damage suffered is attributable to the plaintiff’s own fault and, therefore, cannot admeasure the extent of the damage rightfully attributable to the defendant.

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Bluebook (online)
148 Ill. App. 197, 1909 Ill. App. LEXIS 260, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/hickey-v-chicago-city-railway-co-illappct-1909.