Seaboard Air-Line Railway Co. v. Benton

159 S.E. 717, 43 Ga. App. 495, 1931 Ga. App. LEXIS 445
CourtCourt of Appeals of Georgia
DecidedJune 15, 1931
Docket20856
StatusPublished
Cited by35 cases

This text of 159 S.E. 717 (Seaboard Air-Line Railway Co. v. Benton) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Georgia primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Seaboard Air-Line Railway Co. v. Benton, 159 S.E. 717, 43 Ga. App. 495, 1931 Ga. App. LEXIS 445 (Ga. Ct. App. 1931).

Opinion

Jenkins, P. J.

This was a suit for damages on account of the death of the plaintiff’s husband in a collision at a public crossing between an automobile-truck which he was driving and a passenger-train of the defendant. The court overruled a general and special demurrer to the petition as amended. The trial resulted in a verdict in favor of the plaintiff, and the defendant excepts to the order overruling its motion for a new trial, based upon the usual general grounds and numerous special grounds. Error is also assigned upon exceptions pendente lite taken to the 'order overruling the demurrer. The petition as amended alleged in substance that the decedent drove upon the tracks of the defendant company without being aware of the approach' of the train, and that his truck was- struck by the oncoming passenger-train of the defendant, traveling at a speed of sixty miles an hour, and approaching the [497]*497public crossing in a populous community without the whistle being blown, and without the bell being rung, without the speed of the train being slackened, and without the engineer and fireman keeping a constant and vigilant lookout ahead, and while the fireman was engaged, in violation of the rules of the company, in firing the engine on approaching the station. It is charged that such acts constituted negligence, and were the proximate cause of the death of the decedent.

What constitutes negligence on the part of a defendant, what constitutes the proximate cause of an injury, and what amounts to a failure to exercise ordinary care on the part of a plaintiff are generally questions for a jury. Farrar v. Farrar, 41 Ga. App. 120 (152 S. E. 278), and cases cited. Even had the petition disclosed, and the evidence established, that the decedent was driving the automobile in violation of the statutes regulating the use of motor-vehicles, that fact would not necessarily preclude any sort of recovery. Louisville & Nashville R. Co. v. Stafford, 146 Ga. 206, 209 (91 S. E. 26) ; Central of Ga. Ry. Co. v. Larsen, 19 Ga. App. 413 (91 S. E. 517).

The act approved August 19, 1918 (Q-a. L. 1918, p. 212; Michie’s Code, 1926, § 2677), regulating the operation of railroad-trains, by which the provisions of the Civil Code (1910), §§ 2675-2677, known as the "blow-post law,” were repealed, imposed certain duties upon the employees of a railway company in approaching a public railroad-crossing, a failure to comply with which constitutes negligence per se. Louisville & Nashville R. Co. v. Faust, 30 Ga. App. 310 (2) (117 S. E. 761). The provisions of the act of 1918 are not affected by the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States in Seaboard Air-Line Ry. Co. v. Blackwell, 244 U. S. 310 (37 Sup. Ct. 640, L. R. A. 1917F, 1184), since the ruling there made affected only the constitutionality of the provision of the previous statute, repealed by the act of 1918, with reference to checking the speed of a train on its approach to a public crossing. Davis v. Whitcomb, 30 Ga. App. 497 (6) (118 S. E. 488).

. Independently of the provisions of the statute regulating the operation of railroad-trains on approaching public crossings, there rests upon the railroad company a duty to exercise ordinary care, and a failure of the servants of a railroad company operating its [498]*498train to give any signal by bell, wlristle, or otherwise, or to check the speed of the train on approaching a public crossing, might, in the opinion of the jury, constitute actual negligence, in the light of the surrounding facts and circumstances. Southern Ry. Co. v. Slaton, 41 Ga. App. 759 (4), 762 (154 S. E. 718); Western & Atlantic Railroad v. Reed, 35 Ga. App. 538, 540 (134 S. E. 134); 52 C. J. 175, 209, §§ 1769, 1810; Continental Improvement Co. v. Stead, 95 U. S. 161 (24 L. ed. 403).

In accordance with the foregoing rulings, the petition in the instant case stated a cause of action, and was not subject to the demurrers interposed.

“ Under the constitutional amendment of 1916, defining the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court and the Court of Appeals of this State, the Court of Appeals has jurisdiction to decide questions of law that involve application, in a general sense, of unquestioned and unambiguous provisions of the constitution to a given state of facts, and that do not involve construction of some constitutional provision directly in question and doubtful either under its own terms or under the decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States, and that do not involve the constitutionality of any law of the State or of the United States or any treaty.” Gulf Paving Co. v. Atlanta, 149 Ga. 114 (99 S. E. 374); Daniel v. Claxton, 35 Ga. App. 107 (132 S. E. 411). In the instant case the plea of the defendant sets forth, in substance, that to subject the defendant railway company to liability for damages on account of the alleged negligence in failing to check the speed of its train on approaching the crossing at which the homicide occurred, in view of the facts set forth by the plea as to the number of crossings on the line of the defendant’s railway in the State of Georgia, and the time that would be consumed in checking the speed of the train at each of such crossings would amount to an unauthorized regulation of interstate commerce, in that it would impose an unreasonable burden thereon, thus violating the commerce clause of the Federal constitution. But since the defendant thus merely contends that to hold it liable under the facts would be violative of the Federal constitution as imposing an unreasonable burden on interstate commerce, and raises no question as to the constitutionality of any statute of the State of Georgia, this court is not deprived of jurisdiction to pass upon questions of actual negligence, growing out of a particular [499]*499state of facts, although involving in a general sense the application of unquestioned and unambiguous provisions of the constitution. Southern Pacific Co. v. DiCristina, 36 Ga. App. 433, 435 (137 S. E. 79).

In the absence of action by Congress authorizing the particular acts complained of as negligence, or prescribing the degree of care and diligence to be exercised by a railroad company in operating interstate trains at public crossings, assuming, without deciding, that Congress has such power, it can not be said that the general duty to exercise ordinary care, imposed by the law of the State upon its citizens generally, constitutes an unreasonable burden upon interstate commerce because persons engaged in interstate commerce incidentally come within the purview of such general laws. See, in this connection, U. S. v. Bevans, 3 Wheat. 336 (4 L. ed. 404); Sherlock v. Alling, 93 U. S. 99 (23 L. ed. 819).

The charge of the court submitting to the jury for determination all the questions of negligence raised by the petition was, therefore, not error.

The court did not abuse its discretion in declining to send the jury from the court-room while counsel for the plaintiff, in the course of his argument, read to the judge the act approved August 24, 1929 (Ga. L. 1929, p.

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

Related

Head v. CSX Transportation, Inc.
524 S.E.2d 215 (Supreme Court of Georgia, 1999)
Collins v. State
414 S.E.2d 297 (Court of Appeals of Georgia, 1991)
Hospital Authority v. Jones
386 S.E.2d 120 (Supreme Court of Georgia, 1989)
Verde v. Granary Enterprises
345 S.E.2d 56 (Court of Appeals of Georgia, 1986)
Horton v. Riedel
280 S.E.2d 166 (Court of Appeals of Georgia, 1981)
Johnson v. State
236 S.E.2d 65 (Supreme Court of Georgia, 1977)
Ridley v. State
223 S.E.2d 131 (Supreme Court of Georgia, 1976)
Burnet v. Bazemore
176 S.E.2d 184 (Court of Appeals of Georgia, 1970)
Matthews v. Smith
136 S.E.2d 457 (Court of Appeals of Georgia, 1964)
Northern Freight Lines, Inc. v. Southern Railway Co.
132 S.E.2d 541 (Court of Appeals of Georgia, 1963)
Ellis v. Southern Railway Company
101 S.E.2d 230 (Court of Appeals of Georgia, 1957)
Cone v. Atlantic Coast Line Railroad Company
78 S.E.2d 836 (Court of Appeals of Georgia, 1953)
Atlantic Coast Line R. Co. v. Key
196 F.2d 64 (Fifth Circuit, 1952)
Tyson v. Shoemaker
65 S.E.2d 163 (Supreme Court of Georgia, 1951)
Pierson v. M. M. Bus Company
40 S.E.2d 561 (Court of Appeals of Georgia, 1946)
Brown v. Service Coach Lines Inc.
31 S.E.2d 236 (Court of Appeals of Georgia, 1944)
Powell v. Smith
29 S.E.2d 521 (Court of Appeals of Georgia, 1944)
Atlanta & West Point Railroad v. Hemmings
19 S.E.2d 787 (Court of Appeals of Georgia, 1942)
Atlanta & West Point Railroad v. Truitt
16 S.E.2d 273 (Court of Appeals of Georgia, 1941)
Town of Woodland v. Carter Construction Co.
16 S.E.2d 129 (Court of Appeals of Georgia, 1941)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
159 S.E. 717, 43 Ga. App. 495, 1931 Ga. App. LEXIS 445, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/seaboard-air-line-railway-co-v-benton-gactapp-1931.