Sawyer v. St. Louis-San Francisco Railway Co.

1964 OK 36, 391 P.2d 230, 1964 Okla. LEXIS 302
CourtSupreme Court of Oklahoma
DecidedFebruary 18, 1964
DocketNo. 40176
StatusPublished

This text of 1964 OK 36 (Sawyer v. St. Louis-San Francisco Railway Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Oklahoma primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Sawyer v. St. Louis-San Francisco Railway Co., 1964 OK 36, 391 P.2d 230, 1964 Okla. LEXIS 302 (Okla. 1964).

Opinion

WILLIAMS, Justice.

The principal question to he determined herein is whether the trial court properly sustained defendant’s demurrer to plaintiff’s evidence. The parties appear here in the same relative position as in the trial court and further reference to them is here so made.

Plaintiff initiated his action under the provisions of the Federal Employers’ Liability Act for damages for personal injuries. In his petition plaintiff alleged that on July 25, 1960, the defendant’s train on which he was the conductor derailed; that he sustained severe and permanent injuries; that “for a long time preceding’ plaintiff’s injury, defendant had made a practice of systematically reducing its maintenance of way employees until it was impossible to make a daily inspection of defendant’s track”; that “if defendant had made such inspection, it would have discovered that the track” at the site of the derailment “had a sun kink in it” ; that defendant negligently failed to properly line, surface and level its track when defendant knew that its trains would be using said tracks daily, all of which constituted undue risk of harm to plaintiff whose duties caused him to ride upon said train.

The defendant for its answer pleaded a general denial, admitted that a sun-kink caused the derailment but denied that it could have been discovered by reasonable inspection. Defendant alleged that the accident was due solely to an act of God, and that no negligence on defendant’s part proximately contributed to the cause of the accident.

After plaintiff had introduced his evidence and rested, the trial court sustained defendant’s demurrer to plaintiff’s evidence. From judgment for defendant and the overruling of his motion for a new trial, plaintiff appeals.

For reversal plaintiff advances five propositions. His first is that “The trial court erred in sustaining defendant’s demurrer to plaintiff’s evidence.”

Mr. A. F. Richards, defendant’s road-master, testified that a sun-kink caused the derailment. He further testified that rail anchors were “supposed to be ever so often”; that there weren’t many in the area of the derailment; that when the track was repaired after the derailment, additional anchors were not put in but that a little later some were put in; that if a rail is properly anchored there is less chance of sun-kinks. .

Mr. Richards further testified that the “stretch of track” here involved “had some new ballast;” “a little ballast put along there, but not quite enough; just typical.”

Mr. M. A. McDonald, defendant’s general gang foreman, testified that a sun-kink caused the derailment; that the sun-kink occurred on the 100# rail; that there were anchors on the 90# rail but there were not any on the 100# ; that the purpose of rail anchoring is to “keep the rail from flowing”; that such would tend to prevent an occurrence of this nature; that “the anchors will stop it from sun kinking because the sun kink will either come up or go out one of the two”.

Mr. Floyd L. Owen, defendant’s district gang maintenance of ways foreman, testified that a sun-kink caused the derailment; that the rail anchors prevent creepage and rail expansion and are effective to some extent in preventing sun-kinks; that “There is a pattern that is an acceptible pattern, of 12 anchors to each rail.”

[232]*232Mr. Owen further testified of effect that “the less ballast or the less properly its ballasted the more chance for the occurrence of a sunkink”.

Mr. George Witt, a maintenance employee of defendant who patrolled the section of rail here involved, testified that there were no rail anchors on the 100# rail; that there were on the 90#; that the 90# rail wasn’t molested by the derailment ; that it was all on the 100 # rail; that the purpose of the rail anchors is “to keep the rails from crawling and shifting”.

Mr. Witt further testified:
“Well, if you’ve got a weak place or anything like that and no ballast there, it will jump out side ways before it will come straight up, but if there is heavy balast on it, it will raise straight up because you have not got something to hold it down.”

Mr. S. E. Flemming, a construction engineer with the Santa Fe Railroad for six years, testified that he had investigated more than forty derailments allegedly due to sun-kinks; that a sun-kink would more fittingly be called “rail expansion or creep-age or rail contraction”; that it occurs “when a section of rail moves in one direction or the other, because of various things”; that some of the causes are when you “have a combination of heat with tight joints, loose bars, failure to have adequate rail anchors, or no rail anchors, loose spikes”. He was asked the following hypothetical question: “Assuming the following facts to be true; that defendant’s track * * * was originally laid with 90# rail in 1918, containing approximately 8 to 10 rail anchors on each rail; that in 1943 defendant replaced this 90# rail up to * * * where a derailment occurred, with used 100# rail * * * and that this rail was manufactured in 1926 and 1927; that such 100# rail * * * contained no rail anchors * * * that the temperature was approximately a 100 degrees ; that the defendant’s train consisted of the engine and 31 cars travelling at a speed of 45 miles per hour * * * that while proceeding at the aforementioned speed the rear 4 cars of the defendant’s train derailed; that at the point where the derailment commenced that it was noted after the derailment that the 100# rails were kinked and broken loose from the ties but no damage was noted to the 90# rail * * * do you have an opinion concerning the cause of such derailment?” Mr. Flemming answered that he did and when requested to give that opinion he stated: “I am of the opinion that it would be improper track maintenance and inadequate inspection”. In explaining his answer Mr. Flemming testified that “you mention the fact that a section of rail is anchored with 8 to 10 anchors to the rail and then you have another section that isn’t anchored, and that both sections of this track is quite old, this track was laid in several years ago you indicated in your question, it would indicate that the expansion or creepage in the 100# rail simply moved up to the 90# rail where it was properly anchored and there is where it gave way.”

Plaintiff contends “that the logical inference from this testimony is that the defendant’s failure to use rail anchors in 100# sections of the rail constituted negligence which was the proximate cause of this derailment.”

Defendant argues “that while plaintiff’s evidence completely explained the nature and cause of the accident, as well as all of defendant’s activities with regard to the construction and maintenance of its tracks, there was no positive inference of negligence and nothing but the wildest type of speculation of negligence which could possibly be presented to the jury”. We do not agree. In its brief defendant sets forth 7 items of evidence it claims “plaintiff neglected to mention”. These are of effect that sun-kinks are caused by heat, that such can not be discovered by inspection and are a problem to all railroads. Such evidence was favorable to defendant, but when it demurred to plaintiff’s evidence, such evidence (favorable to defendant) should have been disregarded by the trial [233]*233court for the purpose of ruling on the demurrer.

In the first paragraph of the syllabus in the case of Thompson v. Irvin, Okl., 362 P.2d 460, we held:

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Related

Yellow Transit Freight Lines, Inc. v. Allred
1956 OK 283 (Supreme Court of Oklahoma, 1956)
Smittle v. Illingsworth
1962 OK 167 (Supreme Court of Oklahoma, 1962)
Bush v. Middleton
1959 OK 116 (Supreme Court of Oklahoma, 1959)
Carter Oil Co. v. Johnston
1953 OK 118 (Supreme Court of Oklahoma, 1953)
Lawson v. Lee Eller Ford, Inc.
1962 OK 208 (Supreme Court of Oklahoma, 1962)
Martin v. Farmers Cooperative Exchange
1961 OK 289 (Supreme Court of Oklahoma, 1961)
Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railroad Company v. Jones
1960 OK 40 (Supreme Court of Oklahoma, 1960)
Thompson v. Irvin
1961 OK 122 (Supreme Court of Oklahoma, 1961)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
1964 OK 36, 391 P.2d 230, 1964 Okla. LEXIS 302, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/sawyer-v-st-louis-san-francisco-railway-co-okla-1964.