Miller v. Michigan Central Railroad

132 N.W. 483, 167 Mich. 21, 1911 Mich. LEXIS 591
CourtMichigan Supreme Court
DecidedSeptember 29, 1911
DocketDocket No. 111
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 132 N.W. 483 (Miller v. Michigan Central Railroad) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Michigan Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Miller v. Michigan Central Railroad, 132 N.W. 483, 167 Mich. 21, 1911 Mich. LEXIS 591 (Mich. 1911).

Opinion

McAlvay, J.

Plaintiff brought suit to recover damages for personal injuries claimed to have been caused on account of the negligence of the defendant’s servants and agents.

The accident occurred at a railroad crossing on Division street, in the city of Dowagiac. Five tracks of defendant’s railroad cross this street, which runs east and west, running in a northeasterly and southwesterly direction. This crossing is protected by gates. On the day in question, plaintiff had come into town with a load of hay, upon an ordinary wagon drawn by his two-horse team. He came along Division street, going east. The gates were down, and he stopped near the west gates and waited about 10 minutes, when they were raised, and he proceeded to cross. At the point where he waited, he could not see up or down the track. When plaintiff got past the gate-house, he looked in both directions. He saw an engine towards the south, standing still on a switch track, estimated by him to be about 90 feet away. He proceeded, and his statement is that when his horses got on the last track, which was the track on which this engine stood, he noticed that it started towards him. He urged his horses, and had nearly cleared the track when the engine struck the hind wheel of the wagon, and threw him off over the front wheel onto the street. He claims that, he was severely injured.

There are two switches south of the center of Division [24]*24street. The first is 81 feet distant, and the second is 288 feet distant. The engine in question was a switch engine, engaged in switching, and had backed towards the farther switch to kick two of the four cars it was handling farther back, and as testified by its engineer it was stopped at that switch for a very short time, and then started north towards this crossing to put the two remaining cars over the nearer of the two switches mentioned. This required running the engine across the street, and in doing this the collision with plaintiff’s wagon occurred. The engine was at the time going about three miles an hour. Plaintiff recovered judgment.

Of the numerous errors assigned, we will consider only those discussed in defendant’s brief. The first is that the declaration does not state a cause of action, in that negligence is charged in general terms, and no breach of any specific duty is alleged. The allegations of the declaration charging negligence and a breach of duty are as follows :

“The said plaintiff was riding on a certain wagon loaded with hay, then and there drawn by a certain team of horses, upon and along a certain public street in said city called Division street, and upon the crossing of the said street and said railroad of said defendant, of which the defendant then and there had notice, and the said defendant then and there had a certain locomotive, which was then and there standing still upon said railroad under the care and management of the servants of the said defendant, and it was then and there the duty of the defendant to not move said locomotive, so that the same should collide with the plaintiff while he was so crossing said tracks, nor until he had passed the same, yet while the said plaintiff, in the exercise of due care, was then and there riding, as aforesaid, upon the said public street on the crossing aforesaid, the said defendant, not regarding its duty in that behalf, carelessly and negligently, by its servants, then and there started said locomotive toward the plaintiff, and so negligently conducted and managed that the said locomotive was then and there driven to, upon, and over the said crossing, and then and there, with great force and violence, struck the wagon of the [25]*25said plaintiff, whereby the said plaintiff, although himself in the exercise during all that time of due care, was then and there thrown with such violence from and off of his wagon that he became and was then and there greatly hurt, bruised, and wounded, to wit, his back and legs strained and bruised, and the said plaintiff internally and permanently, and he then and there became and was sick, sore, lame, and disordered, and so remained and continued for a long space of time, to wit, thence hitherto, during all of which said time the plaintiff suffered great mental and physical pain and was prevented from attending to his necessary affairs and business by him to be attended to, and was obliged to incur and did incur,” etc

No demurrer to the sufficiency of the declaration was interposed. The questions as to its sufficiency are raised by objections to evidence. Reliance is placed by defendant upon the case of Schindler v. Railway Co., 77 Mich. 136 (43 N. W. 911), a case in which the court held that, although defendant had not demurred, the declaration did not state a cause of action. Of the declaration in that case, as to the averment of negligence, the court said:

“All that is averred is simply that defendant negligently struck a sleigh at a road crossing; the driver not being in fault.”

A careful reading of the declaration in the instant case shows a specific allegation of a breach of duty on the part of defendant, in that, with notice of the fact that plaintiff, in the exercise of due care, was making this crossing, and a duty rested upon it not to move its locomotive, then standing still, so as to collide with him, it negligently and carelessly, by its servants and agents, disregarded its duty and started its engine, and ran into plaintiff’s wagon. This declaration is not drawn with the redundancy of language familiar to the forms supplied by the old artists in pleading, which is gradually losing its charm to the profession and courts of the present day; but it contains in simple language a specific allegation of a breach of duty, whereby an injury was inflicted. This court has so held in a very similar case, where the declaration in its [26]*26allegations did not so clearly indicate the specific duty neglected. In that case, the late Justice Hooker, speaking for the court, said:

“A series of objections to evidence, and a number of requests to charge, raise questions upon the sufficiency of the declaration, which is said not to be sufficiently specific in its description of negligence. Counsel seem to insist that the law requires that the declaration shall state at length and in detail the circumstances which led up to the accident, and the objection is made that the declaration does not show the specific act of negligence without which the collision would not have occurred. Among these objections were the following, viz.: Objection of evidence that the plaintiff was upon the track; the rate of speed of the car; the fact that the wagon bos fell upon the plaintiff, and that he subsequently spit blood; the fact that one track was higher than the other, and its general condition. All of these things were circumstances which throw light upon the question of defendant’s alleged negligence, viz., that the motorman carelessly ran the car against the plaintiff’s wagon, and its consequences. The only negligence alleged or submitted to the jury was the management of the car-, whereby it was permitted to run with great speed and force against the wagon. We discover no defect in the declaration that can be taken advantage of upon the trial, and think the evidence admissible.” Bush v. Railway Co., 113 Mich. 513-515 (71 N. W. 851).

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Bluebook (online)
132 N.W. 483, 167 Mich. 21, 1911 Mich. LEXIS 591, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/miller-v-michigan-central-railroad-mich-1911.