Moran v. Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway Co.

48 S.W.2d 881, 330 Mo. 278, 1932 Mo. LEXIS 794
CourtSupreme Court of Missouri
DecidedApril 12, 1932
StatusPublished
Cited by25 cases

This text of 48 S.W.2d 881 (Moran v. Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe 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
Moran v. Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway Co., 48 S.W.2d 881, 330 Mo. 278, 1932 Mo. LEXIS 794 (Mo. 1932).

Opinions

*284 FRANK, J.

Action under the Federal Employers’ Liability Act to recover damages for the alleged wrongful death of plaintiff’s intestate and husband, Joe E. Moran, an assistant signal maintenance man in the employ of defendant. He w'as struck by a through passenger train at Rutledge, Missouri, on December 14, 1926, while endeavoring to remove a service motor car from the track and out of the path of the approaching train. Plaintiff recovered judgment in the sum of $30,000 and defendant has appealed.

It is admitted that both deceased and appellant were at the time of the accident engaged in interstate commerce. The case was, therefore, properly brought under the Federal Employers’ Liability Act, and being brought under a Federal act, it is governed by applicable Federal decisions.

The petition states a case under the humanitarian or last chance doctrine. The answer contains a general denial and pleas of contributory negligence and assumption of risk.

The refusal of defendant’s demurrer to the evidence is assigned as error. In support of this contention it is claimed that no case was made for the jury under the last chance rule as applied in the Federal Courts. It is asserted that the humanity rule enforced in the Federal Courts is not the so-called humanitarian doctrine which prevails in Missouri, but the last clear chance doctrine; that under the last chance doctrine a negligent defendant will not be held liable to a negligent plaintiff except where the defendant, “aware of the plaintiff’s peril or unaware of it only through carelessness, had in fact a later opportunity than the plaintiff to avert an accident.” [K. C. So. Ry. Co. v. Ellzey, 275 U. S. 236, 241, 72 L. Ed. 259, 48 Sup. Ct. 80.] In other words, if the plaintiff’s negligence continues as an active factor up to the happening of the accident he cannot recover on the last chance theory. [Wheelock v. Clay (8th C. C. A.), 13 Fed. (2d) 972, 973.] Measuring the case by this rule, appellant contends that Moran had the later opportunity to avert the accident, in that he knew the train was coming and could have at any moment stepped out of harm’s way, but having negligently failed to do so, his active continuing negligence down to the time of the injury defeats respondent’s right to recover damages for his death.

We do not agree to appellant’s contention. In the first place, this case was brought under the Federal Employers’ Liability Act (45 U. S. C. A., Chap. 2, sees. 51, 53). This act provides that a carrier shall be liable in damages for the injury or death of its employee “resulting in whole or in part” from the negligence of its officers, agents and servants; and that the contributory negligence of the employee “shall not bar a recovery” but merely operate in diminution of damages.

*285 This statute does not make tbe liability of tbe carrier contingent upon its negligence occurring later in point of time than tbe negligence of tbe plaintiff. Tbe statute provides, without qualification, that tbe carrier is liable if tbe injriry or death of its employee results in part from its negligence. We interpret tbe statute to mean that tbe negligence of a plaintiff however late in point of time and however directly connected with the injury, does not defeat a cause of action under tbe statute — if the defendant’s negligence remains a proximate contributing cause.

Tbe word negligence as used in this statute has a broad meaning. Tbe statute does not attempt to define it. In a recent case the United State Supreme Court, speaking of the Act, said, “It is to be construed liberally to fulfill the purposes for which it was enacted and to that end tbe word (negligence) may be read to include all the meanings given to it by courts and within the word as ordinarily used.” [Jamison v. Encarnacion, 281 U. S. 635, 640, 74 L. Ed. 1082, 50 Sup. Ct. 440.] Without‘doubt it comprehends any negligence of the defendant causing or proximately contributing to the injury, whether antecedent or subsequent to the negligence of the plaintiff. The cases cited by appellant in support of its contention that the last chance doctrine applies to this case, are not cases under the Federal Employers’ Liability Act and for that reason they are not of controlling influence here. But we need not and do not rest our decision on the statute alone. If w'e are wrong in our conclusion as to what the statute means, and if the last clear chance doctrine, as contended for by defendant, applies to this case, we would still hold that a case was made for the jury under that doctrine. The facts in the case would not justify us in holding as a matter of law that deceased Moran was guilty of such negligence as precludes a recovery in this ease, either under the statute or under the last chance doctrine. That question was one of fact to be determined by the jury.

For more than four years prior to Moran’s death, he was in the employ of defendant as a workman engaged in maintaining its signal system. At the time of his death he was working under the direction of his boss, Ora Greer, to whom defendant furnished a motor car for use in going from place to place over defendant’s tracks in the performance of their duties.

On the day in question Greer and Moran left defendant’s station at Baring and proceeded eastward upon the motor car to defendant’s station at Rutledge. It was Greer’s custom to inquire of station agents as to the whereabouts of trains. Before leaving Baring, Greer learned that train No. 22 was late. He testified that he so informed Moran. On arriving at Rutledge, Greer stopped the motor car in *286 front of the station, left Moran with it, and went into the station and inquired as to the whereabout of train No. 22. 'While he was in the station, train No. 22 whistled at the whistling post one-half mile west.of the station. Moran at once and hurriedly started to push the motor ear eastward to a switch for the purpose of removing it from the track. The motor car weighed eight hundred pounds and it was a heavy job for one man to lift it from the track. With his back to the on-coming train, he pushed the motor car about two hundred feet to the switch track. He almost succeeded in getting the car and himself in the clear when the engine struck him and inflicted the injuries which caused his death.

Other pertinent facts will be stated in course of the opinion.

One of the questions raised by the demurrer is whether or not the engine crew, by the exercise of ordinary care, could have averted the accident by stopping or slowing the train after they actually saw Moran in a position of peril. Both the engineer and fireman testified that they saw Moran as the engine rounded the curve onto the straight track and that point is shown by evidence of respondent to be 700 feet from the place where Moran was struck. The fireman testified that the instant the engine rounded the curve onto the straight track, he saw' Moran endeavoring to get the car in- the clear; that he knew unless something was done to stop the train, there was great danger of Moran’s being killed. These facts tend to show that the engineer saw Moran in a position of peril when the engine was 700 feet from him.

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Bluebook (online)
48 S.W.2d 881, 330 Mo. 278, 1932 Mo. LEXIS 794, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/moran-v-atchison-topeka-santa-fe-railway-co-mo-1932.