Missouri Pacific Railroad v. Rodden

59 S.W.2d 599, 187 Ark. 321, 1933 Ark. LEXIS 373
CourtSupreme Court of Arkansas
DecidedApril 24, 1933
Docket4-2981
StatusPublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 59 S.W.2d 599 (Missouri Pacific Railroad v. Rodden) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Arkansas primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Missouri Pacific Railroad v. Rodden, 59 S.W.2d 599, 187 Ark. 321, 1933 Ark. LEXIS 373 (Ark. 1933).

Opinion

Mehaffey, J.

J. H. Rodden, by Ms next friend, O. B. Rodden, brought tMs suit in the Clark Circuit Court against the Missouri Pacific Railroad Company. The facts, as testified to by appellee, are substantially as follows:

J. H. Rodden, the appellee, was about 19 years of age, and, prior to the time he alleged he was injured, he was at work at Sparenberg, Texas, and was coming home from there. He was accompanied by Earl Lawley and another boy, from Kentucky. Jack Williams met up with them at Dallas, Texas. They had been catching rides on the highway until they got to Texarkana, Arkansas, about two hours after dark, and went down to the railroad yards. They found a man working on the engines, and asked him what time they could get a train out of there to Prescott, and he told them between one and two.o’clock in the morning of February 29th. He told them where to catch the train up at the road crossing. They thought he was a trainman because he was working in the yards. Between one and two o’clock in the morning they caught a freight train out of Texarkana going to Prescott. The appellee’s mother and father are dead, and he had been living with his uncle, O. B. Rodden, who brings this suit as his next friend.

There were about 65 or 70 cars in the freight train. They caught the train at the road crossing where the man working in the yards told them to catch it. They boarded the train on the east or right side. After they had gotten out of Texarkana a mile or two, a brakeman came from the direction of the engine and passed the appellee first. Appellee was on the back end of a car, and Lawley and Williams were on the front end of the next car behind him. The cars on which they were riding were 10 or 12 cars back of the engine. The brakeman passed appellee and then passed the other two boys and went on beyond them about 15 cars. When he came back by these two boys he Avas motioning to them and talking to them, and they reached in their pockets and handed him something. He then walked up to the car appellee was on and asked him what he was holding. Appellee told him he was broke and was going home; that he was hungry, and asked the brakeman to let him ride to the next stop. According to his testimony, the brakeman cursed him, and appellee told him he could not get off there Avithout killing himself, the train was going so fast. The brakeman again.cursed him and told him to get off or he would kill him. Appellee started down the ladder, and the brakeman stepped on his fingers. The brakeman hung his lantern on the door and kicked the appellee in the muscle of his right arm and paralyzed it, then kicked him in the head and chest. Appellee saw he was going to fall any way, and threw his head as far as possible. His foot struck a spike in the cattle guard. His head hit the ground, and about daylight he regained consciousness, and found that his boot was caught in the cattle guard. He pulled his foot out of his boot, and found the flesh clotted up.

The man that forced him off the train had on a hat, blue serge pants, blue jumper, and had a small lantern with a globe that was small at the top and big at the bottom. It had braces around it and protection bars. It was a regular railroad lantern.

Appellee’s chest hurt him so that he could hardly get a deep breath without pain; his knee was a little stiff, and there was a skinned place on it.

An automobile came by on highway 67 and the driver carried appellee to the Missouri Pacific Hospital at Texarkana. Appellee told the driver how he was hurt; that he was kicked off a freight train. The man that took him to the doctor explained how it happened. The doctor said appellee was not hurt much. He grabbed appellee’s foot, twisted the toe's back, took a pair of scissors, went around the gash and cut the flesh, put medicine on it, and wrapped it up, and told appellee it would be all right.

Prior to his injury, appellee was a pastry cook in a restaurant, but he got sick and decided to go home. He has.not been able to follow his occupation as a cook since he was injured. He cannot stand on his feet to work as he did before. He has not done anything since he was hurt.

He hitch-hiked his way from Sparenberg to Texarkana, and the reason he did not hitch-hike his way to Prescott was that he was broke and hungry, and wanted to get home and get something to eat. He did not buy a ticket because he did not have enough money. He was within fifty miles of Prescott and wanted to go on home.

The man in the yards that told appellee about the train was oiling an engine. The only member of the train crew that appellee saw when he got on the train was a man who caught the back end of the train, the caboose. Appellee was riding on a refrigerator car. The brakeman weighed from 140 to 170 pounds and was rather heavy-set. Appellee did not notice any badge on the brakeman, but noticed the way he was dressed, and that he was carrying a lantern. Appellee was unable to point out from the train crew which man it was who kicked him off.

The evidence on the part of the appellant contradicted the testimony given by the appellee. The jury returned a verdict in favor of the appellee for $2,000. The. ease is here on appeal.

The appellant contends that there is no substantial evidence to establish that appellee was ejected from the train by a brakeman.

Appellee testified that he was ejected by a brakeman. When asked how he knew it was a brakeman, he stated that he was dressed in blue overalls, wore a blue jumper, and was walking on top of the train from the front end towards the rear, and then walked back, and that he had a railroad lantern.

The conductor testified that, so far as he knew, there was no one on the train except employees of the railroad company wearing a railroad suit and carrying a lantern.

It is contended that there is no evidence to show that the party who kicked appellee from the train was a brakeman; no evidence that he was performing. any duties. The jury had a right to infer that the person dressed as appellee says this person was dressed, carrying a lantern and walking on top of the freight train, doing what brakemen frequently do, was a brakeman.

In the case of St. L., I. M. & S. R. Co. v. Hendricks, 48 Ark. 177, 2 S. W. 783, the court said: “It is not urged that there was a failure of proof except in this particular, vis-. That Cost and the other witnesses were not positive that the man whom they alleged was the cause of the injury was one of the company’s employees. Upon his examination in chief, the plaintiff testified that the man alluded to was a brakeman on appellant’s train, but on cross-examination he stated he did not know that to be a fact. He gave as the reason for his belief, however, that he saw the man on the platform at Cabot with a lantern, deporting himself as an employee; and James Jenkins, his other witness, who rode from Cabot to Little Bock on the train, and corroborated Cost’s statement of the accident, testified that the man acted as a brakeman on the train between these points.

“If the jury credited the testimony that the man was for such a length of time aiding the company in operating its train, it was sufficient to justify the conclusion that he was a regular employee.

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Related

Missouri Pac. R.R. Co., Thompson v. Yandell
191 S.W.2d 592 (Supreme Court of Arkansas, 1946)
Mo. Pac. Ry. Co., Thompson v. Shell, Admx.
185 S.W.2d 81 (Supreme Court of Arkansas, 1945)

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Bluebook (online)
59 S.W.2d 599, 187 Ark. 321, 1933 Ark. LEXIS 373, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/missouri-pacific-railroad-v-rodden-ark-1933.