Newman v. St. Louis-San Francisco Railway Company

369 S.W.2d 583, 1963 Mo. LEXIS 702
CourtSupreme Court of Missouri
DecidedJuly 18, 1963
Docket49673
StatusPublished
Cited by5 cases

This text of 369 S.W.2d 583 (Newman v. St. Louis-San Francisco Railway Company) 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
Newman v. St. Louis-San Francisco Railway Company, 369 S.W.2d 583, 1963 Mo. LEXIS 702 (Mo. 1963).

Opinion

BARRETT, Commissioner.

This is an' appeal by the Frisco Railroad from a $225,000 verdict for personal injuries in favor of Terry Newman, age 11.

Before considering the merits of the appeal some preliminary observations are necessary to precisely point up the issues involved and to place in context the only questions raised by the railroad, the giving and refusal of certain instructions and whether the verdict is excessive. In view of these specifically raised questions it stands admitted (almost necessarily in view of the circumstances) for the purposes of this appeal that there was a breach of duty, that a negligently operated train ran over and injured Terry and that he was not guilty of contributory negligence. On the other hand, this was not a res ipsa loquitur case (“Res ipsa loquitur as ground for direction of verdict in favor of plaintiff.” 153 A.L.R. 1134), the evidence was virtually all oral and for reasons inherent in the jury system (Schroeder v. Chicago & Alton R. Co., 108 Mo. 322, 327, 18 S.W. 1094, 1095, 18 L.R.A. 827, Terry was not entitled to a directed verdict thereby rendering immaterial any errors in the giving and refusal of instructions. It is only in the most exceptional instances, solemn admissions of counsel or a written stipulation of facts (Magoffin v. Missouri Pacific R. Co., 102 Mo. 540, 15 S.W. 76), that a plaintiff in a negligence action is entitled to a directed verdict. Fisher v. Williams, (Mo.) 327 S.W.2d 256, 259; Cluck v. Abe, 328 Mo. 81, 40 S.W.2d 558. And in this connection it must be noted that many of the cases cited by the parties have to do with the substantive rules of law, several of them automobile collision cases involving adults and contributory negligence or the humanitarian doctrine, and are therefore less than helpful. Furthermore, in view of the hundreds of cases involving railroads, including the numerous instances of children injured while playing, walking or sitting on railroad tracks, these cases are not particularly persuasive even in so far as they are purportedly cited as announcing general rules with respect to instructions. But if certain rules of substantive law are necessary to an understanding of the problems raised upon this appeal the following authorities, not cited by the parties, have been consulted thus placing in proper context the objections to instructions. “Railroad’s duty to children walking longitudinally along railroad tracks or right of way.” 31 A.L.R.2d 789; “Contributory negligence of children.” 107 A.L.R. 4; “Failure of train employee to discover in time to avert accident that object seen on or near track is human being, as negligence.” 70 A.L.R. 1116; “Duty and standard of care, with respect to contributory negligence, of person with physical handicap, such as impaired vision or hearing, approaching railroad crossing.” 65 A.L.R.2d 703; and, “Contributory negligence of adult struck by train while walking or *585 standing beside railroad track.” 63 A.L.R. 2d 1226.

In any event, in view of the railroad’s tacit admissions with respect to liability only the barest statement of facts is required. Terry, a mentally retarded boy, also suffering epilepsy, lived with his parents about a mile and a half east of Senath. Their home is 187 feet from the Frisco’s Leachville branch-line tracks and about 50 feet from a dirt road. On the afternoon of July 7, 1961, Terry was sitting on the east rail of the tracks, 20 to 25 feet beyond the dirt road crossing. His back was to the south, his feet extending between the rails and, according to the fireman, he was making “a slight movement. * * * Just a little bit of a weave forward and backward.” About 1:55 o’clock the Frisco’s Leachville twice-a-week local freight train, traveling north, ran over Terry as he sat on the rail. The speed of the train as it whistled at the “signal board” eight and a half poles (the poles are 172 to 182 feet apart) from the crossing was 25 miles an hour. There are photographs, precise measurements and detailed testimony as to distances, speeds, and all the circumstances, but here it is only necessary to say that while the engineer sounded the bell and whistle the fireman, when the train was “Around four and one-half poles or a little over, I guess” from the crossing, saw Terry sitting on the rail and yelled at the engineer and “told him there was a little boy up there on the railroad tracks.” In response the engineer “started blowing the whistle in short blasts * * and then he got a little air,” but he did not make an emergency application of the brakes. When the train was 50, 55 or 60 feet away Terry, for the first time, “looked at us” but did not move or change position. The brakes were thrown into emergency, according to the fireman, when the locomotive was two and one-half to three poles from Terry. The train, consisting of the engine, four cars and a caboose, stopped with 16 feet of the caboose on the crossing. At a speed of 25 miles an hour it could have made an emergency stop in 132 to 160 feet. In these briefly noted circumstances the factual issues to be resolved by the jury were indeed very simple and the railroad’s negligence and consequent liability all but undeniable. Jett v. Central Electric Ry. Co., 178 Mo. 664, 77 S.W. 738; Fiedler v. St. L. I. M. & S. Ry. Co., 107 Mo. 645, 18 S.W. 847; Chamberlain v. Missouri Pacific R. Co., 133 Mo. 587, 33 S.W. 437, 34 S.W. 842; Reardon v. Missouri Pacific R. Co., 114 Mo. 384, 21 S.W. 731. As the court said in another instance of a train running over a boy age 10, “if they see a child of tender years upon the track * * * they have no right to presume that he will get out of the way, but should act upon the belief that he might not, or would not, and they should, therefore, take means to stop the train.” Riley v. Missouri Pacific Ry. Co., 68 Mo.App. 652, 661. It is in the context of this easily understood, simple factual situation that prejudicial error in the giving and refusal of instructions is to be determined.

The railroad’s principal attack is directed at instruction 5, the plaintiff’s main instruction. After setting forth the duty of the railroad "after discovering Terry Newman sitting on the rail of the track” (emphasis supplied of course), the instruction told the jury that if they found that “Terry was and remained seated upon the east rail of the railroad track and that as the defendant’s locomotive approached from the south the defendant’s engineer saw and continued to see Terry Newman seated upon the track and that as the locomotive approached and the plaintiff remained in such position, there arose a reasonable likelihood of harm to the plaintiff and danger to him, and that thereafter the defendant’s engineer, by the exercise of ordinary care, could have stopped the locomotive and have avoided injury to the plaintiff but that he failed to do so, and if you find that in so failing defendant’s engineer was negligent and if you further find that plaintiff sustained injuries as a direct result of such negligence” the verdict should be in his favor.

It is said as the first of four assignments directed against this instruction that *586

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Bluebook (online)
369 S.W.2d 583, 1963 Mo. LEXIS 702, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/newman-v-st-louis-san-francisco-railway-company-mo-1963.