Merchants Transfer & Storage Co. v. Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific Ry. Co.

170 Iowa 378
CourtSupreme Court of Iowa
DecidedJanuary 22, 1915
StatusPublished
Cited by23 cases

This text of 170 Iowa 378 (Merchants Transfer & Storage Co. v. Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific Ry. Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Iowa primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Merchants Transfer & Storage Co. v. Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific Ry. Co., 170 Iowa 378 (iowa 1915).

Opinion

Gaynor, J.

This is an action to recover damages for injury to personal property alleged to have been caused by the negligence of the defendant.

The place where the accident occurred was near the mouth of an alley between two streets. These streets are known as Sixth and Seventh Streets, and run north and south across the defendant’s tracks. The collision which caused the injury was near the mouth of this alley. Defendant’s tracks are on Vine Street. This street runs east , and west immediately south of the alley, and across Sixth and Seventh Streets. This alley appears to have been vacated and closed up, both to the north and to the south of defendant’s tracks, except that it was left open one-half block north from the track for the purpose of serving two warehouses, one [381]*381to the east and the other to the west of the alley. The one to the west is known in this record as the International Harvester Building, and the one to the east is known as the Davidson Building. The Davidson Building had burned down prior to this accident, but the south walls were still standing. The alley was twenty feet wide.

It appears that at the time of this accident, the defendant had placed cars south and east of the alley on one of these tracks. The west -end of the nearest car was nine feet east of the east line of the alley. The southwest corner of the west box car, from the wall of the Davidson Building, was twenty feet and six inches away. From the north side of the west car to the wall of the Davidson Building was eleven feet, ten inches. It was sixteen feet from the south line of these buildings to the center of the track on which the cars were standing. The track is four feet eight and one-half inches wide.

The track on which these cars were standing is practically parallel with the track upon which the train was being operated at the time of the injury. The evidence shows it was 7.2 feet between the tracks.

It appears that on the day of the accident, one Samuels was in charge of plaintiff’s wagon and horses, and had just loaded his wagon from the door east of the Harvester Building farthest north on the alley, and was proceeding south through the alley towards defendant’s tracks, and in attempting to cross the track, came in collision with a train being backed towards the west, and in this collision, the horses were badly injured, the wagon wrecked, and Samuels killed.

The acts of negligence upon which plaintiff predicated his right to recovery are:

1st. That the defendant, in backing its train towards the west and across this alley, did not keep a proper lookout, and gave no warning of the approach.

2d. That the brakeman in charge of the car at the time of the accident negligently placed himself near the southeast [382]*382comer of the car where it was impossible for him to observe the approach of plaintiff.

3d. The defendant negligently failed to have anyone stationed upon the car, or in its vicinity, to observe the approach of teams from the north, through the alley, to give Warning of the approach of -defendant’s trains.

4th. The car that struck the plaintiff’s team was being switched at the time, at an unnecessarily high rate of speed.

5th. That the defendant was negligent in the failure of its employees to observe certain rules which it had itself promulgated for the observance of its employees.

6th. That the defendant was negligent in placing the cars on the north side of Vine Street so as to obscure the approach of cars on its tracks.

It appears that the court, on motion of the defendant during the progress of the trial, struck out the fifth ground of negligence alleged, and withdrew it from the consideration of the jury. The court, in submitting the case to the jury, submitted only the 1st, 2d, 3d and 4th grounds of negligence above stated-

The answer of the defendant was a general denial. Cause was tried to a jury and verdict returned for the defendant, and judgment being entered upon this verdict, plaintiff appeals.

1. Railroads: negligence: rules governployeesadmissibiuty. It appears that upon the trial of the' . case the plaintiff offered m evidence defendant’s book of rules and regulations, and ex-elusion of this is the first error assigned. These rules were promulgated by the company, and are as follows:

102. When cars are pushed by an engine (except when shifting and making up trains in yards), a flagman must take a conspicuous position on the front of the leading car.

102a. Trains or ears must not be pushed over streets, highway crossings, or street or electric railway or steam railway crossings at grade, unless a trainman is on the leading [383]*383ear, or on the track or ground ahead, to see that the crossing is clear; and trains or cars shall be pushed over such crossings only on his signal.

Passenger cars in service or occupied must not be switched unless coupled to the engine and with air brakes in use.

110. Approaching or passing through stations or yards, or over railroad crossings, drawbridges, or track covered by slow orders, or on long descending grades and at other places where safety requires extra precaution, brakeman must be on top of freight trains in position to observe and assist in stopping the train should air braké failure or other emergency require. Enginemen and firemen must keep watch for signals from trainmen while passing over slow track and on freight trains, obtain a “Proceed” signal from the rear when the train has passed over and also after all switches or a station have been passed; this signal to be acknowledged by the whistle signal.

These rules were offered as tending to show negligence on the part of the defendant’s employees in the transaction in controversy and as admissions or declarations of the defendant.

This assignment is disposed of by the former holdings of this court. See Hart v. Cedar R. R. Co., 109 Iowa 631, and cases therein cited; Blumenthal v. Electric Co., 129 Iowa at page 324; and Carter v. Sioux City Service Co., 160 Iowa 78. These holdings rest on the proposition that the law regulates the duty of the railroad company to the public. The standard of care required is fixed by the law. The railroad company can promulgate no rules for the conduct of its servants, whether they require more or less than the law requires, and bind the public by such rules. All negligence rests upon a supposed duty that the party charged owes to the public in cases of this kind, and that is a legal duty, or a duty imposed upon it by law. The standard of care is fixed by the law. The liability rests upon the violation of the legal duty it owes to the public. If the law should require [384]*384but one lock upon a door, and the one on whom the duty of placing the lock rests should instruct his servant to place two locks, and the servant should only place one lock, the master has violated no duty that the law imposed upon him by failure of his servant to put more than one lock upon the door.

2. Trial : instructions: refusal of correct instruction: duty of Court. It is next alleged that the court erred in refusing certain instructions asked by the plaintiff. The rule is, — the court is not bound to submit every instruction requested, even though the instruction asked be unobjection- . . . ’ able m every essential particular; but it the J r 7

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Bluebook (online)
170 Iowa 378, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/merchants-transfer-storage-co-v-chicago-rock-island-pacific-ry-co-iowa-1915.