Ozanne v. Illinois Cent. R.

151 F. 900, 1907 U.S. App. LEXIS 4997
CourtU.S. Circuit Court for the District of Western Kentucky
DecidedMarch 16, 1907
StatusPublished
Cited by4 cases

This text of 151 F. 900 (Ozanne v. Illinois Cent. R.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering U.S. Circuit Court for the District of Western Kentucky primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Ozanne v. Illinois Cent. R., 151 F. 900, 1907 U.S. App. LEXIS 4997 (circtwdky 1907).

Opinion

EVANS, District Judge.

At the conclusion of all the testimony the defendant moved the court to direct a verdict in its favor. The motion was fully argued yesterday afternoon, and I have given the questions raised as full and careful consideration as the time has permitted. If the only question were whether the lady who sues was distressingly and permanently injured, an answer in the affirmative could, very easily and very truthfully be made, but even though this be true, it does not follow that she is entitled to recover from the defendant. That result must depend upon other and further considerations, and involves more than the mere question of actual injury.

The evidence leaves no dpubt that she .purchased from defendant at Memphis, Tenn., a ticket whereby she became a passenger on its train thence to Louisville on the night'of July 8, 1905; that she also [901]*901purchased a sleeping car ticket from the Pullman Company, and went aboard one of its sleeping cars which was in defendant’s train; that when the train left Memphis it was about 46 minutes behind its schedule time; that the next morning about 7:20 o’clock the train was about one hour behind time and within about an hour’s run from Louisville; that it was running rapidly and at about its regular speed; that at that time Mrs. Ozanne had gone into the ladies’ dressing room, had almost completed her toilet, and was buttoning her dress, when the car, in turning a curve in the track, lurched or swerved; that she fell when the car did so and broke her hip, resulting in great and long-continued sufferings; that she is still unable to walk but little, and that her injury is permanent—the medical testimony being that a person of her age, namely, 66 years, is not at all likely ever to recover from such an injury. There is no dispute that the track over which the train was moving at the time was in good order and condition, nor any that the train was well managed and running at about its schedule rate of speed at the point where the injury occurred. The undisputed testimony was that the car in which she was riding was a standard Pullman sleeper in good order, and built in the way and upon the plan of most of the sleeping cars of the Pullman Company which were operated in this section of the country and on defendant’s lines of railroad. The evidence unmistakably showed that the Pullman Company built most of its cars upon the same pattern or plan and considered it the best. The real dispute was as to whether the plan and dimensions of the ladies’ dressing room made it dangerous, per se, and it was insisted that it was so, because this dressing room was not provided with a seat like the smoking and dressing room for men, and that it had no fixtures to hold on by the hand. The testimony, however, showed that the reason for making the smoking room larger than the ladies’ dressing room and furnishing it with seats was that it was designed to afford accommodations for those who lounged and smoked therein, and a place for the porter to sleep in. There was no contrariety in the testimony that the maker of the car regarded it as safer and better not to have a seat or chair in the ladies’ dressing room, nor handholds affixed to its walls, for several reasons indicated by the witnesses, such as the danger of projections on the wall, and the danger in a small room of falling over a chair or a seat therein.

The fact was also established beyond contradiction by the plaintiff’s testimony that Mrs. Ozanne’s feet were turned directly inwards, instead of straight forward in the usual way. This misfortune made it necessary that she pass one foot over the other at each step, and,» while habit and instinct may have made this easy enough under ordinary circumstances, it may well account for her fall under the then abnormal surroundings, although she may have been unconscious of it in the quick happenings of that occasion. Especially may this be so, as no other fall of anybody in such a dressing room has ever occurred to the knowledge of old employes of the sleeping car company.

There was no claim nor testimony to show that there was any defect in the material nor in the structural perfectness of the car or of the ladies’ dressing room—the only claim, we repeat, being that the plan, form, etc., of that room were necessarily dangerous, and that [902]*902it was, per se, negligent for the defendant to run'or to use in its trains a car with a ladies’ dressing room of that sort. While not stated in that precise form by counsel for the plaintiff, it must come to that in its ultimate analysis. The Circuit Court of Appeals, in the late case of Carnegie Steel Co. v. Albert Byers, 149 Fed. 667, said that:

“The burden, however, was ui/on the plaintiff to make substantive proof of some negligence—the .omission of some duty which the defendant owed to them.”

With this settled rule before us, we are to determine whether upon the undisputed testimony it was negligence, per se, or negligence at all to run a car with such a ladies’ dressing room in it as was found on this car. True, the plaintiff was hurt, but the testimony shows her to be the only lady and indeed the only person ever known to have been injured in such a room on any one of the Pullman cars in any part of the country within the company’s history. In the light of such testimony we cannot hold that there was any negligence whatever in running such a car in the defendant’s train. Certainly no negligence was proved, unless using that form of car with that plan of dressing room in it was of itself negligence. It would be most illogical to conclude that one instance under such circumstances as attended this one in any degree showed negligence, where so many instances in so many years showed perfect safety. In disposing of the demurrer to the petition in an opinion then delivered we took occasion to say:

“It is quite difficult to see that any cause of action is stated against the demurrant; but as the plaintiff’s petition does not on its face show that the car in which the female plaintiff was riding was not constructed as the Pull-man Company usually constructs its cars, nor according to the method which conforms to the standard adopted by that company as best suited io the purposes for which it builds cars, and, furthermore, 'because the petition squints at a contract between the female plaintiff on the one side and the two defendants jointly on the other, I have concluded to overrule the demurrer, and leave the case for more comprehensive consideration when wo come to charge the jury. But it must not be supposed by counsel that the court has reached the conclusion that liability against either defendant conld arise unless there was something more to bring on the injury than the swerving of the car when'the. train was turning a curve in the railroad track. Such a result under the laws of nature is inevitable under such circumstances, and must be presumed to have been within the contemplation of all parties when the trip upon the train in question was undertaken. Possibly that much risk must be regarded as having been assumed by the passenger, provided, of course, the defendants had come up.to legal requirements as to care in tin* construction of the cars and the operation of the train.”

" In the recent work of Moore on Carriers, at page 603 (in section 5 of chapter 20), the author says:

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Bluebook (online)
151 F. 900, 1907 U.S. App. LEXIS 4997, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/ozanne-v-illinois-cent-r-circtwdky-1907.