Malott ex rel. Malott v. Harvey

204 S.W. 940, 199 Mo. App. 615, 1918 Mo. App. LEXIS 117
CourtMissouri Court of Appeals
DecidedJune 10, 1918
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 204 S.W. 940 (Malott ex rel. Malott v. Harvey) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Missouri Court of Appeals primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Malott ex rel. Malott v. Harvey, 204 S.W. 940, 199 Mo. App. 615, 1918 Mo. App. LEXIS 117 (Mo. Ct. App. 1918).

Opinion

TRIMBLE, J.

Plaintiff, a little girl seven years old, was going diagonally across Tenth street in Kansas City, Kansas, carrying some groceries in her arms, walking in a northeast direction and- looking to the north. She passed over the west, or northbound, track of the defendant’s street railway and had almost cleared the track when a street car came behind her [616]*616from the south and struck her with its northeast corner knocking her violently to the pavement and injuring her. She brought this suit by next friend to recover damages.

The petition charged that the operatives of the car “negligently caused, suffered or permitted said car to run into and against plaintiff . . . when they saw

plaintiff approaching; close to; upon the track upon which said car was running and in a position of peril and oblivious to the presence of said car, in time thereafter by the exercise of ordinary care to have stopped said ear or slackened the speed thereof or to have warned plaintiff of the approach thereof and avoided running into and injuring plaintiff but negligently failed to do so.”

Aside from admitting the official character and status of the receivers, the answer was, a general denial followed by this paragraph:

“Further answering said petition, defendants say that it is, and was at all the dates mentioned' in plaintiff’s petition, the law of the State of Kansas, as declared by the Supreme Court of the State of Kansas, which is the court of the last resort in said State, that there is no duty upon the motorman of a street car to begin to stop the same, until he actually sees a person upon the track or about to go upon the track into a position of peril. Such rule is announced to be the law, by the Supreme Court of the State of Kansas, in the following cases, as reported in the official reports of said court: Dyerson v. Ry. Co., 74 Kansas, 528; Railway v. Bentley, 78 Kansas, 221; Himmelwright v. Baker, 82 Kansas, 569; Marple v. Ry. Co., 85 Kansas, 705; Coleman v. Ry. Co., 87 Kansas; 190; Dunlap v. Ry. Co., 87 Kansas, 197. Wherefore, having fully answered, the defendants pray to be dismissed with their costs.”

The reply was a general denial.

At the close of plaintiff’s evidence the defendant offered a demurrer which was overruled. The de[617]*617fenclant thereupon offered in evidence the decisions cited in its answer. These were objected to by plaintiff as being’ outside the issues, because the laws of Kansas were not pleaded in the pétition or in the answer and were not properly pleaded by defendant. These objections were overruled. The defendant offered no. futher testimony but renewed its demurrer. "Whereupon, the court announced that it was going to rule, and would hold, that, under the Kansas decisions in evidence, the plaintiff had not made a case and the demurrer to the evidence would have to be sustained. In view of this, plaintiff took an involuntary nonsuit with leave to move to set the same aside. This motion being duly filed and overruled, plaintiff brought the case here by appeal.

In Miller v. Chinn, 195 S. W. 552, 554, it was ruled that in pleading foreign decisions pertinent parts thereof should be alleged so as to avoid the charge that mere conclusions of law were stated. And in Gibson v. Chicago Great Western Railway Co., 225 Mo. 473, 484-5, and in Wentz v. Chicago, Burlington & Quincy R. Co., 259 Mo. 450, 465, it is held that foreign laws “must be pleaded with the same certainty that any other extrinsic fact must be pleaded which is essential to a right of action or to constitute a defense;” and such pleadings should “not merely state conclusions of what counsel think they (the foreign laws) mean.” It is a very serious question whether the answer sufficiently pleads the foreign decisions under the above rule. It would seem to be merely the pleader’s conclusion that said decisions announce the rule that “there is no duty upon the motorman of a street car to begin to stop the same until he actually sees a person upon the track or about to go upon the track' into a position of peril.” And certainly there is no allegation of facts which would enable such foreign rule to constitute a defense to a petition which charged (as this one does) that the motorman saw plaintiff approaching, close [618]*618to, and upon the track, in a position of peril and oblivious to the ear.

But inasmuch as the eourt acted upon the answer as sufficient and disposed of the case in accordance therewith, we need not pass upon the question of whether the answer was sufficient or not but will dispose of the case upon. the theory that the answer was sufficient to bring to the court’s attention the alleged rule in force in the jurisdiction where plaintiff’s cause of action arose.

The action of the court was tantamount to holding that in no conceivable theory under the pleadings and the evidence could the jury find the motorman negligent and the defendants liable therefor. Now, even if the Kansas cases announce the rule as contended for by defendants, they do not reach far enough if the evidence is such that the jury could reasonably find that after plaintiff had gotten on the track and was in a place of danger, the motorman actually saw her and could reasonably have’ avoided injuring her and failed to make any effort to do so. Then again, the Kansas cases relied upon are all cases where plaintiff was an adult exposed to the full force of a charge of contributory negligence. In the main case, Dyerson v. Union Pacific R. Co., 74 Kan. 528, 533, the Supreme Court of Kansas manifestly recognizes that if negligence is not to be imputed to the plaintiff therein, the rule would not apply, by refuting the claim that negligence could not be imputed to him in that case. In the case of Kansas Pacific Ry. Co. v. Whipple, 39 Kans. 531, 540, the court held that, had the plaintiff been “an adult we might perhaps say as a matter of law, upon' the facts disclosed by the trial, that he could not recover. [Citing cases.] But the party injured was not an adult; he was only a little boy. in his ninth year of age.” . “As the engineer knew of the presence of the boy upon the track as the engine was about crossing 'Main street, and as he must have known when he [619]*619saw him that he was a boy of tender age and not so capable of taking care of himself as an older person or an adnlt, he should have brought to bear, for • the safety of the boy and his undeveloped judgment, the exercise of adult judgment and caution to prevent his being run over. If the boy had not been seen by the engineer upon the track, or if he had been seen too late to avert the accident, then an entirely different question would be presented for our • determination. ’ ’

The evidence discloses nothing as to the experience, intelligence or capacity of the plaintiff in the case at bar beyond the fact that she was seven years old and had been entrusted with groceries to carry home. Hence negligence cannot be imputed to her as a matter of law. [Watson v. Southern Ry., 44 S. E. 375; Chicago Northwestern Ry. Co. v. Jamieson, 112 Ill. App. 69; Fritsch v. New York and Queens County Ry. Co., 87 N. Y. Supp. 942; Riley v. Salt Lake Rapid Transit Co., 37 Pac. 681] The theory upon which the Kansas rule rests is that if the negligence of the defendant and of the injured plaintiff is concurrent and exists up to the time of the injury, both have caused it and the plaintiff cannot recover.

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Bluebook (online)
204 S.W. 940, 199 Mo. App. 615, 1918 Mo. App. LEXIS 117, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/malott-ex-rel-malott-v-harvey-moctapp-1918.