Morgan v. Hines

260 F. 585, 1919 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 1043
CourtDistrict Court, E.D. Oklahoma
DecidedSeptember 20, 1919
DocketNo. 3123
StatusPublished
Cited by7 cases

This text of 260 F. 585 (Morgan v. Hines) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, E.D. Oklahoma primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Morgan v. Hines, 260 F. 585, 1919 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 1043 (E.D. Okla. 1919).

Opinion

WILLIAMS, District Judge.

This action was brought in the district court of Pittsburg county, Okl., by the plaintiff, for herself and others as surviving widow and children of Louis K. Morgan, deceased, who was* killed in a crossing accident. Under the allegations of plain - tiff’s petition, the defendant Carroll Johnson, the owner and driver of an automobile, with the plaintiff’s intestate as a passenger therein, negligently drove same in front of the defendant railroad’s train, as it was passing over a certain crossing. Long prior thereto defendant’s railroad track immediately adjacent to each side of said crossing was located and maintained in a cut some 8 or 10 feet deep, below the general surface of the surrounding country. On its banks were then growing weeds more than 10 feet in height, on account of which persons traveling on the highway over said crossing were unable to see trains from the direction from which the train approached which struck said automobile, occasioning intestate’s death. By the proper exercise of care by either the railway company’s employes or the said Carroll Johnson said accident would not have occurred; said accident being caused by the concurrent and commingled negligence of both of said defendants. Said actions should not be remanded, unless a separable controversy is presented.

In Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific Railroad Co. v. Durand, 65 Kan. 380, 69 Pac. 356, it was held that the driver of a hack carrying passengers, who negligently drives in front of an approaching train of cars at a street crossing, may be joined with the railroad company as a defendant for injuries received by their concurring negligence.

In Stemfels v. Metropolitan Street Railway Co., 73 App. Div. 494, 77 N. Y. Supp. 309, which was affirmed by the Court of Appeals in a memorandum opinion (174 N. Y. 512, 66 N. E. 1117), the court said:

“Where a passenger was killed in a collision between a street car and a brewery wagon, caused by the concurrent negligence of both, a joint cause of [586]*586action could be maintained against tbe street railroad company and the brewery company, notwithstanding the different degrees of care owed deceased by the two defendants.”

See, also, Colegrove v. N. Y. & N. H. R. Co., 20 N. Y. 492, 75 Am. Dec. 418.

In Abb v. N. P. Ry. Co., 28 Wash. 428, 68 Pac. 954, 58 L. R. A. 293, 92 Am. St. Rep. 864, the plaintiff, a passenger on a street car, sustained injury in a collision between the car, on which he was a passenger, and the defendant railroad’s train. The two companies were held to be joint tort-feasors.

In Field v. Spokane, Portland, etc., R. Co., 64 Wash. 445, 117 Pac. 228, it was held that the negligence of a stage driver, in failing to stop, look, and listen at a railroad crossing, and that of the engineer of the railroad company, who failed to give a signal .of the train’s approach, was joint and concurrent.

In Matthews v. Delaware, L. & W. R. Co., 56 N. J. Law, 34, 27 Atl. 919, 22 L. R. A. 261, plaintiff was injured by a collision between a locomotive of the defendant railroad company and a car (in which he was a passenger) of a street railway company. Held, that a joint action could be maintained against both companies, if the collision was produced by the neglect of the railroad company to give notice of the approach of the locomotive, concurrent with the neglect of the street railway company to observe proper care in crossing the railrciad track. In the opinion it is said:

“If two or more persons owe to another the same duty, and by their common neglect of that duty he is injured, doubtless the tort is joint, and upon well-settled principles each, any, or all of the tort-feasors may be held. But when each of two or more persons owe to another a separate duty, which each wrongfully neglects to perform, then, although the duties were diverse and disconnected, and the negligence of each was without concert, if such ¡several neglects concurred and united together in causing injury, the tort is equally joint, and the tort-feasors are subject to a like liability.”

In Tompkins v. Clay Street Hill R. Co. et al., 66 Cal. 163, 4 Pac. 1165, a car of the Clay Street Hill Company collided at a crossing, with á car of the Sutter Street Railroad Company. Plaintiff, a passenger in the car of the latter company, was thrown from her seat and injured. ■ The complaint charges negligence on the part of both companies. Plaintiff recovered damages, and on appeal the judgment was affirmed. Held that, if the negligence of the managers of both vehicles contributed to the injury, the party injured may recover from the proprietors jointly or severally.

In Central Passenger Ry. Co. v. Kuhn, 86 Ky. 578, 6 S. W. 441, 9 Am, St. Rep. 309, Kuhn, in an action against the Central Passenger Railway Company, a passenger on the cars of said railroad company was injured by being thrown out of such car by reason of a collision between the cars of that company and those of the Louisville & Nashville Railroad Company, caused by the joint negligence of the employes of each company. The question of negligence being submitted to the ju'ry, the -finding was that the injury was caused by the concurrent neg:-ligence of both companies,-which judgment, on appeal, was affirmed.

[587]*587In Cuddy v. Horn, 46 Mich. 596, 10 N. W. 32, 41 Am. Rep. 179, it was held:

“A passenger on a public steamboat, injured by its collision with another, in ' consequence of the negligence of the officers of both, may hold both owners liable.”

In Carterville v. Cook, 129 Ill. 152, 22 N. E. 14, 4 L. R. A. 721, 16 Am. St. Rep. 248:

“The evidence given upon the trial tended to prove that the plaintiff, a boy some 15 years of age, while in the observance of ordinary care for his own safety, passing along a much-used public sidewalk of the defendant, was, by reason of the inadvertent or negligent shoving by one boy of another boy against him, jostled or pushed from the sidewalk at a point where it was elevated some 6 feet above the ground, and was unprotected by railing or other guard, and thereby seriously injured in one of his limbs.”

In the opinion the court said:

“It is not perceived how, upon iirinciplc, the intervention of the negligent act of a third person, over whom neither the plaintiff nor the defendant has any control, can he different in Its effect or consequence in such case from the intervention therein of an accident having a like effect. The former no more than the latter breaks the causal connection of the negligence of the city or village with the injury. The injured party can no more anticipate and guard against the one than the other, and, the elements which constitute the negligence of the city or village must be precisely the same in each case, and we have accordingly held that, when a party is injured by the concurring negligence of two different parties, each and both are liable, and they may he sued jointly or separately.”

In Holzab v. New Orleans & C. R. Co., 38 La. Ann. 185, 58 Am. Rep. 177, plaintiff sued to recover damages for injury to his wife, caused by a collision of the trains of the New Orleans & Carollton Railroad Company and the Illinois Central Railroad Company, both being made codefendants. The collision and injury was occasioned at a crossing. On appeal a judgment against both defendants was affirmed.

In McDonald v. Louisville & C. R. Co., 47 La. Ann.

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Bluebook (online)
260 F. 585, 1919 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 1043, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/morgan-v-hines-oked-1919.