Ramos v. Sucesión J. Serrallés

51 P.R. 332
CourtSupreme Court of Puerto Rico
DecidedApril 22, 1937
DocketNo. 6946
StatusPublished

This text of 51 P.R. 332 (Ramos v. Sucesión J. Serrallés) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Puerto Rico primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Ramos v. Sucesión J. Serrallés, 51 P.R. 332 (prsupreme 1937).

Opinions

Mr. Justice Córdova Dávila

delivered the opinion of the court.

Elvira Bamos seeks to recover damages for the death of her daughter, a child 3% years old, alleged to have been caused by the negligence of the defendant. The lower court rendered judgment for the defendant, and thereupon the plaintiff took the present appeal.

The defendant company is engaged, among other businesses, in the planting of cane and the production of sugar. There is a settlement in one of the defendant’s plantations, called “Colonia Segunda Cintrona,” where employees and laborers of the defendant who work in said plantation live. This settlement consists chiefly of an alleyway or small square aTong which there are two rows of buildings, including a store, quarters for laborers, the overseer’s house, and several dwelling houses. The plaintiff lived in one of these houses at the time the events giving rise to this litigation occurred. Children of various ages live in the neighborhood and they usually play in the said way or square.

Every year, during the grinding season, the defendant lays a portable railroad track that runs from the sugar-cane plantation abutting on the settlement, along the alleyway or square that separates the said establishments, and finally connects with the main track of defendant’s railroad. The defendant uses said portable track for the transportation of sugar cane from the said plantation, in railroad cars drawn by oxen. Then the ears are hitched to a steam engine which hauls them to the factory.

During the 1933 grinding season, the defendant laid this track along the alleyway. On June 9, 1933, they were hauling sugar cane in five railroad cars drawn by three yoke of oxen that were being driven by laborers. At about 3:30 o’clock in the afternoon of the same day, the drivers were forced to stop the cars because a buggy was standing across the tracks. The last of the cars stopped more or less directly in front of the house of the plaintiff. One of the laborers [335]*335in charge of tending the cattle took advantage of this opportunity to feed the oxen with the aid of the drivers. After Ms work was completed, the said laborer signaled the drivers to proceed. No sooner had the cars started moving than they were stopped again upon hearing the screams of a woman who yelled from the balcony of her house that one •of the cars had run over a child. When the man in charge of the cattle looked back and saw Juanita Ramos, the eldest daughter of the plaintiff, rolling on the track, he rushed to her aid. The girl died that same afternoon in consequence •of the injuries received.

The appellant complains that the doctrines of attractive nuisance and res ipsa loquitur were not applied to this case.

The courts which have adopted the first one of said •doctrines have held that where a person maintains in his ■own, or in somebody else’s property, or at a public place a ■dangerous instrumentality capable of attracting children of tender years, that person should take all due precautions commensurate with ordinary prudence to save harmless the •children that come or may come to the place of danger.

This court, in the case of Rivera v. Porto Rico Drug Co., 32 P.R.R. 470, set forth the reasoning adopted by some respectable authorities, reproducing therein their views concerning this most important question, and applied said doctrine in this jurisdiction. Moreover, that doctrine has been ratified in subsequent, cases. Gonzáles v. P. R. Ry., Lt. & P. Co., 34 P.R.R. 545; Alvarez v. Santa Isabel Sugar Co., 37 P.R.R. 100; Acosta v. P. R. Ry. Lt. & P. Co., 37 P.R.R. 388; Berríos v. Garáu, 46 P.R.R. 773.

There are numerous decisions on this much-debated question and they have given rise to many and varied commentaries. Even in those jurisdictions where the doctrine has been accepted, the courts are not entirely in accord as to the conditions under which it should be applied.

Mr. Justice Clark, in his dissenting opinion in the case United Zinc & Chemical Co. v. Van Britt, 285 U.S. 268, 36 [336]*336A.L.R. 32, says that the American'courts have been divided with respect to the principles of law applicable in the cases of attractive nuisance. “At the head of one group,” he: says, “from 1873 until the decision of to-day, has stood the*. Supreme Court of the United States, applying what has been designated as the ‘humane’ doctrine. Quite distinctly the courts of Massachusetts have stood at the head of the other group, applying what has been designated as a ‘hard doe-trine,’ — the ‘Draconian doctrine.’ ”

It is a well-known fact that the Supreme Court of the-United States adopted this doctrine for the first time in the-ease of Sioux City, etc., R. Co. v. Stout, 17 Wall. 657, 21 L. ed. 745, decided in 1873. Its origin dates back to the year-1841, when the case of Lynch v. Nurdin, 1 Q. B. 28, 113 Eng. Reprint 1041, was decided. Since the said doctrine found its way into the American jurisprudence, it has been the object of criticism and praise which have sought to brings forth its soundness and its weakness. It can not be disputed that the doctrine has survived the severe criticism to which it has been subjected in a number of jurisdictions, that it has demonstrated its vitality by the mere fact of its survival, and that it is inspired not only in a sense of humanity, but also in principles of justice of undeniable fairness.

In the case of Lucas v. Hammond, 150 Miss. 369, decided in 1928, it is stated that the doctrine has been repudiated by a majority of the courts, and that it requires a careful exposition in order not to turn it into an impracticable and unfair requisite. We are not of that opinion. It is true that the aforesaid doctrine has been repudiated by important courts such as those of Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, and’ Pennsylvania, although the courts of the last two States have-not entirely gotten away from being influenced by the principles set forth in the cases where the attractive nuisance is; located in a public way or in any place where a child has alright to be; but it is also true that many important courts-have followed the doctrine under discussion, and' that they [337]*337are more numerous than the others. What really can be said is that there the tendency is to limit it rather than to extend it.

The main argument against the adoption of this doctrine' by the courts which repudiate it is that it detracts from the full ownership of property.

“This rule,” says the Supreme Court of Maine in Nelson v. Burnham & Morrill Co., 114 Me. 213, 95 A. 1029, “is certainly an innovation upon the rules of the common law. It has never been thought until recent years that an owner, under any conditions, was bound to protect trespassers, and no distinction was made between adults and children. The1 rule changes what may be regarded perhaps as a sentimental duty into a legal duty. It infringes upon the salutary and necessary rule that an owner may do what he will with his-own so far as he does not interfere with the legal rights of others. It is an unjustifiable restraint upon the right of an owner to conduct his business as he sees fit. It is a burden upon his business, and a burden created in favor of one who is at the same time trespassing upon his rights.”

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Related

Railroad Co. v. Stout
84 U.S. 657 (Supreme Court, 1874)
Lucas v. Hammond
116 So. 536 (Mississippi Supreme Court, 1928)
Johnson v. Atlas Supply Co.
183 S.W. 31 (Court of Appeals of Texas, 1916)
Nelson v. Burnham & Morrill Co.
95 A. 1029 (Supreme Judicial Court of Maine, 1915)
McAllister v. Jung
112 Ill. App. 138 (Appellate Court of Illinois, 1904)
Davis v. Malvern Light & Power Co.
186 Iowa 884 (Supreme Court of Iowa, 1919)
Louisville & Nashville Railroad v. Steele
201 S.W. 43 (Court of Appeals of Kentucky, 1918)
Atlanta & W. P. R. v. Green
246 F. 676 (Fifth Circuit, 1917)

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Bluebook (online)
51 P.R. 332, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/ramos-v-sucesion-j-serralles-prsupreme-1937.