Norfolk & Western Railway Co. v. Richmond Cedar Works

170 S.E. 5, 160 Va. 790, 1933 Va. LEXIS 258
CourtSupreme Court of Virginia
DecidedJune 15, 1933
StatusPublished
Cited by21 cases

This text of 170 S.E. 5 (Norfolk & Western Railway Co. v. Richmond Cedar Works) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Virginia primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Norfolk & Western Railway Co. v. Richmond Cedar Works, 170 S.E. 5, 160 Va. 790, 1933 Va. LEXIS 258 (Va. 1933).

Opinion

Holt, J.,

delivered the opinion of the court.

This is an action to recover compensation for damages occasioned by a fire charged against the railway company. There was a verdict for the sum of $60,000, which was reduced by the trial court to $42,500.

We shall use the terms plaintiff and defendant as they were there used.

The defendant is a trunk line railway, with double straight away tracks, running from Norfolk to Suffolk and beyond. Between these two cities is Dismal Swamp. That, as its name indicates, is a swamp. It is of vast extent, and stretches from Virginia into North Carolina. Originally it was covered by valuable forests, but they in a large measure have been cut and taken. This cut-over land has upon it a matted growth of bushes, rushes, reeds, cat tails and grass, which make it, in seasons of protracted drought, one great tinder box. The soil is in places covered with peat. It, too, burns when dry.

There are sixteen assignments of error, but when sifted down, in varying forms, they deal with these simple propositions : Did the fire spring from some passing train; and, if so, in the assessment of damages, have proper principles been applied?

[794]*794The drought of 1930 was a memorable one. Certainly we have no record of one so complete or so disastrous. There were fires everywhere. In Norfolk county and in Nansemond county there were about three hundred. They came from passing trains, from hunters, from campers and from other causes. Some were promptly put out; others burned until the late winter rains. The State, railroads and private interests all fought them systematically and at heavy expense, but time and again the situation would get out of hand.

There is evidence for the plaintiff showing, or tending to show, that the fire which did the damage was set out by some passing train on October 4, 1930, and was first seen on the south edge of the right of way, near mile post 15. It began somewhere around 12:48 p. m., and if caused at all by a train, was caused by one of these:

The right of way to the south at this point was littered with weeds, grass, etc., cut but not burnt. The defendant probably thought that to burn it would be dangerous, and [795]*795so as a substitute for that precaution, maintained small motor patrols which followed trains to see that fires were promptly extinguished. Because of some derangement in schedule, this patrol did not on this occasion follow until No. 99 had passed. The tracks run east and west. There was a stiff north wind blowing.

Robert Atkinson was chief fire warden for Norfolk and Nansemond counties. Under him was N. T. Poarch, also a fire warden and an employee of the Camp Manufacturing Company; under him were two negro patrolmen, Lester McCall and Ben Tann. They were stationed by him along the railway right of way, and their duty was to look for and put out fires. One of them carried a tank and the other a bucket. McCall said that he saw smoke for the first time just after eastbound freight train No. 89 had passed. It was about six telegraph poles away. He and Tann ran first to a water hole to fill their bucket and tank, and then to the fire, which was burning along the railway’s south ditch. They made two or three other trips to the water hole before Mr. Poarch came up. They were too late. He had been by there on patrol two or three times that morning but saw no fire to the north except a smouldering log from which no sparks were coming. On it they had poured water. This smouldering log was 130 feet from where the fire started, a little to the east, and thirty-seven steps from the railroad track. The water hole was on the north edge of the right of way and about a hundred yards from the fire.

On cross-examination he gave as an excuse for his failure the fact that he was cut off from this southside fire by a westbound freight, which must have passed about 2:25 p. m. He also said that he saw the fire ten or fifteen minutes after the eastbound freight had passed'. No. 89 passed at 12:48 going east and No. 99 at 2:25, so it is plain that he is mistaken in his estimates of time, but it is certain that at some period the water hole and one at it were cut off from the southside fire by passing freight train No. 99.

Ben Tann saw smoke on the south side just after this [796]*796eastbound freight train had passed. He estimates that they were then about twelve telegraph poles from it. They went first to the water hole. When he reached the fire it was burning along the roadbed and leaping over the ditch. There was nothing on the north to burn. That section had been burnt over and there were left only two or three smouldering stumps or logs on which he had poured water. He further said that in the course of his patrol he had passed this point ten or fifteen minutes before and saw nothing. He made the same confusing statements about being cut off by a westbound freight train, and said on cross-examination that the fire had been burning but a short time when Mr. Poarch arrived.

Mr. Poarch was on duty that day, and had gone from his home near Franklin to fight fires if necessary. He posted McCall and Tann, after which he went east to about mile post 13. He tells us that there was nothing to burn north from where the fire started. After he had reached post 13, a coal train passed him going to Norfolk. Soon after it had passed a negro, Robert White, ■ came up and called his attention to the fact that there was a fire on the south side. He started towards a signal tower but was cut off by a westbound freight. When it had passed he saw from this tower smoke to which his attention had been directed. In a little while he followed this westbound freight train on a patrol motor car. When he reached the fire it was burning south and about 500 feet from the track. He found McCall and Tann carrying water and “wringing wet from perspiration.”

Benthall, one of the defendant’s witnesses, who was near mile post 16, first noticed smoke from this south side fire about half past one, while Whitehead, another of them, and who was between mile posts 17 and 16, thinks that it was about twenty or twenty-five minutes past one when he first saw it. We have seen that the eastbound freight train passed mile post 15 at 12:48.

On August 6th, a fire broke out north of the Norfolk and [797]*797Western right of way, and burned continuously until some time in December. To protect the railroad and to limit the ravages of that fire, lands to the north and around mile post 15 had been twice burnt over by back fires, so that on October 4th there was nothing left in that immediate vicinity to burn. On that day the September fire was burning fiercely in what is known as the Gum Swamp, but that was somewhere from three-quarters of a mile to a mile and a half from this mile post and to the east. Also on October 4th, in this neighborhood, near the right of way, were two other fires, one known as the Moore fire and the other small and unnamed. On September 6th there were six other fires in this section, on or near the right of way.

Defendant’s engines were equipped with spark arresters. They are valuable preventive devices, but are not wholly efficient, as the many fires show. One of the plaintiff’s witnesses said all engines throw sparks. This is particularly true when they are pulling heavy trains. On the facts, as stated, plaintiff’s case rests.

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Bluebook (online)
170 S.E. 5, 160 Va. 790, 1933 Va. LEXIS 258, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/norfolk-western-railway-co-v-richmond-cedar-works-va-1933.