Highland Avenue & Belt Railroad v. South

112 Ala. 642
CourtSupreme Court of Alabama
DecidedNovember 15, 1896
StatusPublished
Cited by17 cases

This text of 112 Ala. 642 (Highland Avenue & Belt Railroad v. South) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Alabama primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Highland Avenue & Belt Railroad v. South, 112 Ala. 642 (Ala. 1896).

Opinion

HEAD, J.

The record shows that the court gave the general affirmative charge for the defendant (appellant) ■ upon the first, second, third, fourth and fifth counts of [648]*648the complaint. We will eliminate .those counts, there* fore, from our consideration of the case. This fact is not shown by the bill of exceptions, but the charges were in writing, and the trial judge wrote thereon “Given,” and signed his name thereto, in conformity to section 2756 of the Code of 1886, and they are certified to us as a part of the record. We will treat the case as having been tried on the sixth, seventh, eighth and ninth counts.

The sixth alleges that about August 6, 1893, the defendant, a duly authorized corporation, owned a railroad in and near the city of Birmingham, and owned rolling stock and other appliances commonly used in operating a railroad, commonly called a dummy line, and was then and there authorized and empowered by its charter to own and operate said railroad, and then and there permitted one of its trains to be run over and upon its said railroad by persons to whom the control and management of said train had been committed by defendant ; and the plaintiff being then and there a conductor on one of the trains of the Birmingham Railway and Electric Company, which was then also running and operating a railroad commonly called a dummy line for the carriage of passengers ; and the plaintiff, being pn one of the dummy trains of that company, dicharging his duties as conductor, moving on said railroad, on First Avenue in said city, the train on defendant’s road in charge of the persons aforesaid, approached First Avenue, coming across a bridge on Twenty-second street and running into First Avenue, in said city, where its railroad track crossed or approached the track then being used by the train of said Electric Comany, on which plaintiff was, as aforesaid, and when said last named train was passing the point where said two tracks cross or approach each other, as above stated, the train on defendant’s road, ran into and collided with the train on which plaintiff was, injuring the plaintiff. And the count then proceeds to aver that the injury was caused by the negligence of the person or persons in charge of defendant’s said train, in failing, at short intervals, to blow the whistle or ring the bell while running said train across said bridge on Twenty-second Street, the same being in said city.

■ The seventh count, is the same as the sixth, except if [649]*649-alleges the cause of the injury to have been a failure to blow the whistle and ring the bell, &c.

The eighth count is the same, except that it alleges that the injury was caused by the negligence of said persons in charge of defendant’s train in failing to come to a full stop withing one hundred feet of the crossing of said two railroad tracks, and permitting the train of defendant’s road to run along towards said crossing without stopping until after colliding with the train on which plaintiff was.

The ninth count is the same, except that it alleges that the defendant’s train was being operated by the defendant, itself, and that the two tracks crossed (not crossed or approached) each other, at the place of collision ; and it alleges the injury was caused by negligence in the management or running of defendant’s said train by the person or persons put in charge thereof by the defendant.

These counts show such a relation of the defendant to the train alleged to have done the injury, and its operation^ to render it, the defendant, responsible for the negligence of those operating it. — Ricketts v. Birmingham Street Railway Co., 85 Ala. 600; Ga. Pac. R’y Co. v. Underwood, 90 Ala. 49. In legal contemplation, the train was being run by the defendant itself, so far as concerned liability for injuries committed by those actually operating it. They also show prima facie that the Birmingham Railway & Electric Company was in the lawful possession and operation of the road or track on which its train, of which plaintiff was conductor, was moving at the time of the collision. No question of the defendant’s ownership of the track, or of the Electric Company and its conductor being trespassers, arises upon the face of the complaint. The demurrers to the complaint, raising these questions, are properly overruled.

The allegation, admitted by the demurrer, that the defendant’s train ran into and collided with the plaintiff’s train, in the manner stated in the several counts under consideration, raised a presumption of negligence on the part of those operating defendant’s train, causing the collision. Of itself it stated a good cause of actio'n, and being admitted or proven, if no more had been alleged, would have cast upon the defendant the burden of overcoming the presumption. The case made by the counts [650]*650to which, we refer, is, that while the train of the Electric Company was regularly and properly proceeding on the track which it was in the possession and use of, at a point where defendant’s road crossed or approached that track, defendant’s train, on its own track, ran into and collided with it — clearly the allegation of a wrong on the part of defendant, which implies no less a degree of culpability than- negligence on the part of those operating the defendant’s train. But, the sixth, seventh and eighth counts, in express terms, undertake to define the particular negligence which caused the collision, and the sufficiency of those counts must be tested by these special allegations, respectively; and further, by making these allegations, the plaintiff assumed the burden of proving them.

By statute, it was the duty of the engineer to blow the whistle or ring the bell, at short intervals, while moving within the city. — Code of 1886, § 1144. The sixth and seventh counts rély upon non-observance of this regula-tion., One of these — the seventh — is defective. It requires both that the whistle should have been blown and bell rung, at intervals &c. The statute is satisfied by either — both are not'required. The demurrer raising this objection ought to have been sustained.

The eighth count is involved in uncertainty, if not repugnancy, and the objection is raised by the seventh ground of demurrer. As we have seen, it alleges, in one alternative, that defendant’s track crossed the Electric Company’s track, and in another, that it approached the latter track — even stopping short, in this alternative, of alleging a junction of the two tracks. The special negligence alleged is the failure to come to a full stop (as required by the statute) within one hundred feet of the crossing of the two tracks, thus ignoring the alternative allegation, to the effect that the tracks did not cross, but that one merely approached the other. We are constrained, by the rules of good pleading, to hold the count insufficient, and that the demurrer to it is well taken.

The ninth count so alleges the unlawful collision and the particular facts as to how it occurred, as to raise the presumption of negligence to which we have already adverted. There is otherwise no special negligent act or [651]*651omission alleged. The demurrers to this count were properly overruled.

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Bluebook (online)
112 Ala. 642, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/highland-avenue-belt-railroad-v-south-ala-1896.