Kirkpatrick v. Metropolitan Street Railway Co.

109 S.W. 682, 211 Mo. 68, 1908 Mo. LEXIS 91
CourtSupreme Court of Missouri
DecidedApril 1, 1908
StatusPublished
Cited by11 cases

This text of 109 S.W. 682 (Kirkpatrick v. Metropolitan Street Railway Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Missouri primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Kirkpatrick v. Metropolitan Street Railway Co., 109 S.W. 682, 211 Mo. 68, 1908 Mo. LEXIS 91 (Mo. 1908).

Opinion

"WOODSON, J.

— This suit was begun in the circuit court of Jackson county by the respondent against the appellant to recover the sum of $5,000' damages, as compensation for injuries sustained by her through the alleged negligence of the latter.

The appellant was a common carrier, and respondent was a passenger upon one of its cars at the time the injuries were received.

Plaintiff pleaded specific acts of negligence, and the allegation is as follows:

“(2). That at a point just east of the intersection of Haskell Avenue with Sherman street, said railway is elevated upon a high trestle; that for a long [74]*74time prior to said date the track west of said Sherman street and across said Sherman street was in a dangerous and defective condition in this: that the ties upon which said track was laid were old and rotten, that the rails were not properly connected together at the joints, so that said, rails did not meet at the joints and form a continuous rail, also said trapk was rough and uneven. That on said date said car in which plaintiff was riding was going at a high rate of speed across said Sherman street and towards said trestle, when, owing to said defects in said track, said car left said track near the west side of said Sherman street and ran along the ties and onto said trestle for some distance, and then fell off said trestle to the ground below, a distance of about twelve feet.”

The answer was a general denial.

Th e facts disclosed by the record are substantially as follows:

The defendant, Metropolitan Street Railway Company, owns and operates what is known as the West Side Line in Kansas City, Kansas. This line runs along Haskell avenue, which is a highway running east and west. Sherman street crosses Haskell avenue at right angles and, just east of the intersection, the street railroad runs on a trestle twenty or twenty-five feet high for a considerable distance. The trestle begins within twenty-five feet of the east line of Sherman street, and going west from Sherman street the street railway tracks are on an ascending grade for half a block.

Plaintiff lived with her husband at Third and Garfield streets, in Kansas City, Kansas. On the morning of January 8, 1904, plaintiff left her home and went to visit a married son who lived- at No. 2726 North Eighth street, near the end of the West Side Line. She remained there until about five o’clock in the afternoon, when she started for her home. She took a [75]*75car on the West Side Line. There were two or three passengers on the car and. W. B. Reaburn was the conductor and Mike Gallivan was the motorman. As the car was approaching Sherman street it was running fast down grade, and as it reached a point about forty feet from the trestle the car jumped the track at a joint in the rails and ran along the ties onto the trestle. At a point where the trestle was about twelve feet above the ground below, the car fell off the trestle to the ground, striking on its side.

Mrs. Kirkpatrick was severely injured. Her skull was fractured; her shoulder was broken, causing a permanent disability, and obliging her to keep her arm in a harness ever since; her coccyx bone was also broken and she was confined to her home for months.

There was abundant testimony given by.plaintiff’s witnesses that the print of the wheels in the ground showed that the car left the track at a joint where the end of the east rail was an inch and a half lower than the end of the west rail. The track was laid on concrete pillars sunk into the ground. There were iron tie rods as well as wooden tie braces extending from one rail to the . other.

The conductor, W. B. Reaburn, brought a suit for his injuries against defendant in the district court of Wyandotte county, Kansas. La that suit defendant filed an answer setting up that defendant’s division superintendent, A. C. Bullock, for some months prior to the accident had forbidden any car to run at a rate of speed exceeding five miles an hour; that the car was running ten miles an hour and that it was dangerous to run a car at so high a rate of speed as ten miles an hour at the place where the accident occurred. The pleadings in the Reaburn case were offered in evidence. The admission of this evidence is assigned by defendant as error.

[76]*76At the request of respondent, and over the objections of the appellant, the court gave, among others, the following instructions; and to the action of the court in giving them the appellant duly saved its exceptions, to-wit:

“1. The court instructs the jury that it was the duty of defendant to use the utmost care, diligence and foresight, which capable and faithful (railroad-men would take, under like circumstances, to keep its track and roadbed in a reasonably safe condition for the running of cars over it.

“2. The court instructs the jury that if you believe from the evidence that, while plaintiff, Martha E. Kirkpatrick, was a passenger in a car running on defendant’s railway, said car was derailed, owing to the fact that the rails were not properly connected together at the joints, so that said rails did not meet at the joints and form a continuous rail, and also said track was rough and uneven, and that said car while derailed ran off from a trestle and injured said plaintiff, then it devolves upon the defendant to prove to the satisfaction of the jury that such derailment of said car was not caused by any fault, negligence or carelessness on its part in providing and maintaining a reasonably safe track and roadbed, in the particulars above set forth, over which to run the same, and unless it is so shown, your verdict should be for the plaintiff.

“5. The court instructs the jury that the petition offered in evidence in the case of W. B. Reaburn, plaintiff, against the Metropolitan Street Ráilway Company, defendant, in the district court of Wyandotte county, Kansas, is to be considered by you only so far as its allegations explain the allegations contained in the answers to said petition offered in evidence. Any allegations contained in said petition as to the speed of the car or the condition of the track [77]*77at the time and place of the accident are not to be regarded by yon as evidence of those facts. With regard to the answers to said petition offered in evidence, you are instructed that any allegations contained in said answers as to the speed of the' car at the time and place of the accident and against the interest of the defendant in this case are to be taken in connection with all the other evidence in the case; you may treat them as true or false, just as you believe them to be true or false, when considered with a view to all the other facts and circumstances in the case.”

At the request of the appellant, the court gave certain instructions, and refused the following, to which action of the court in so refusing appellant duly saved its exceptions, to-wit:

“7. A carrier of passengers is not obliged to foresee and provide against casualties which have not been known to occur before, and which may not reasonably be expected; and if such carrier has availed himself of the best known and most extensively used safeguards against danger, he has done all the law requires, and his liability is not to be ascertained by what appears for the first time after the disaster to be a proper precaution against its occurrence.

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Related

Tryon v. Casey
416 S.W.2d 252 (Missouri Court of Appeals, 1967)
Williamson v. St. Louis Public Service Co.
252 S.W.2d 295 (Supreme Court of Missouri, 1952)
Carroll v. Missouri Power & Light Co.
96 S.W.2d 1074 (Missouri Court of Appeals, 1936)
Stofer v. Kansas City Public Service Co.
41 S.W.2d 614 (Missouri Court of Appeals, 1931)
Porter v. St. Joseph Railway, Light, Heat & Power Co.
277 S.W. 913 (Supreme Court of Missouri, 1925)
City of St. Louis v. United Railways Co.
174 S.W. 78 (Supreme Court of Missouri, 1915)
Small v. Polar Wave Ice & Fuel Co.
162 S.W. 709 (Missouri Court of Appeals, 1913)
Richardson v. Metropolitan Street Railway Co.
147 S.W. 1126 (Missouri Court of Appeals, 1912)
Fink v. Kansas City Southern Railway Co.
143 S.W. 568 (Missouri Court of Appeals, 1912)
Cooper v. Century Realty Co.
123 S.W. 848 (Supreme Court of Missouri, 1909)
Gardner v. Metropolitan Street Railway Co.
122 S.W. 1068 (Supreme Court of Missouri, 1909)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
109 S.W. 682, 211 Mo. 68, 1908 Mo. LEXIS 91, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/kirkpatrick-v-metropolitan-street-railway-co-mo-1908.