Shults v. Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railway Co.

136 N.W. 834, 91 Neb. 587, 1912 Neb. LEXIS 266
CourtNebraska Supreme Court
DecidedMay 29, 1912
DocketNo. 17,132
StatusPublished
Cited by5 cases

This text of 136 N.W. 834 (Shults v. Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railway Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Nebraska Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Shults v. Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railway Co., 136 N.W. 834, 91 Neb. 587, 1912 Neb. LEXIS 266 (Neb. 1912).

Opinion

Hamer, J.

As damages for a personal injury, the plaintiff recovered a judgment in the district court for Lancaster county against the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railway Company for $1,000 and costs. The railroad company has appealed. This is the second appeal. Shults v. Chicago, B. & Q. R. Co., 83 Neb. 272, contains the opinion of this court on the former appeal.

On private business of his own, the plaintiff went down into the freight yards of the defendant railroad company at Lincoln on February 28, 1906, and visited his two cousins, named Kimball, who were moving from Palmyra, Nebraska, to York, Nebraska, in an emigrant car. In one end of their car they had furniture and in the other end of the car they had five horses and three mules. They had attempted to build a fence about the horses and [589]*589mules. The horses and mules were in the south end of the car. They stood crosswise in the car, and were tied up to the side of it. There was a partition between the horses and mules and the empty space which was between the two doors of the car. When the plaintiff reached the car he found his cousins occupying this space. The plaintiff seems to have noticed the partition, and he remarked to one of his cousins that “if he was going to sleep there it should be pretty solid, because if they chugged the car the car might accidentally throw them (the horses and mules) on him.” When the plaintiff was going down to the freight yard where his cousins were, the testimony shows that the yardmaster told him that the particular car in which his cousins were had not been weighed yet, that it was on the “6X” track. The “6X” track was the “scale track.” There is testimony that the yardmaster told him that it was a dangerous place for any one to be wandering about. It was between 8 and 9 o’clock, and a dark night. The plaintiff says it was a dangerous place to go at night. He was shown the way to the car and got into it. It stood in the yards which were used exclusively for the business of the railroad company, and it was on the scale track in a string of cars which were being weighed. The members of the train crew testified at the trial that, while handling and weighing the cars which caused the injury, the work was done in the usual manner, and that no greater speed and no more bumping of cars occurred than was usual when the cars were being weighed. While it is contended by counsel for the railroad company that the public were not permitted to go to this yard, it is in evidence that there was no fence around the part of the yard where the car stood and where the injury occurred, and there were occasional passengers who got on and off of some of the freight trains that stopped in that neighborhood; and there was a small lunch counter in the vicinity, where the employees of the railroad company and a few passengers who rode on a part of the freight trains ate their meals. The conductor [590]*590or other employees of the railroad company directed such passengers as came there on trains to the foot of the stairway which led out of the freight yards to the top of the “O” street viaduct. The locality was not so much frequented by passengers or by the public that the employees operating the defendant’s trains and switch engines could reasonably expect some one- to be there at any time. There is no evidence that passengers boarded the train or left it while it was standing on the scale track, and that track was used expressly by the company and for the purpose of weighing freight cars and switching them. It is common knowledge that it requires no great jolt to throw horses and mules off their feet when they are confined in a freight car, and if the partition was only constructed of pine boards or pine lumber, as seems to be shown by the evidence, then it would be crushed and broken to pieces if the. horses and mules, or a part of them, fell against it or fell down upon it, and the plaintiff in such event Avould quite likely be injured, although the employees of the defendant might exercise reasonable care.

The plaintiff had been in the car only 15 or 20 minutes when the accident happened that resulted in his injury. He testified that he did not know whether the car stood on the scale track or not. He also testified that he was uncertain whether the jolt came from an engine or from another car. It is uncertain whether the particular car was driven against another. When the jolt came the partition between the horses and mules and the empty space was broken down, and one of the mules fell “square on the side” and on top of the plaintiff. The plaintiff seems to have been injured and was not able to go to work at his old employment.

The injury occurred in the freight yards of the company near the viaduct on “0” street. It seems that the jolt occurred while the railroad people were weighing their cars. They would take the car up on to a “hump” in the track 3J feet high, or a little more, the car would [591]*591be let down, and wonld ran across automatic scales which weighed the car as it went across. The cars seem to have been bumped together for the purpose of coupling them, but it is uncertain just how the injury occurred. The car in question seems to have received the customary “bump,” or was bumped against another car. The safety of the plaintiff depended upon the force of the “bump” and whether the partition was strong enough to resist such force. The plaintiff was familiar with the yards. He "knew where the switch shanty, the scale track and the scales were. When the plaintiff went into the freight yards and entered the car with his cousins, he knew that he was taking some risk, because he knew that he was in a car where there were 5 horses and 3 mules, and that if the fence broke by reason of a car or an engine coming in contact with the car that he occupied, or because the car he occupied came in contact with another, then the mules and horses might be precipitated upon him unless the partition was strong enough to sustain their weight. He saw the partition and knew it was made of pine.

The plaintiff testified that there were cars on the track on each side of this car, that is, both north and south of it. The testimony of William GL Kimball, one of the cousins, is to the effect that there were cars both to the north and south of this car, and coupled to it. He does not know whether there was an engine on it at either end or not. He testified that he and his brother built the partition out of pine lumber. He does not describe this partition in detail. It may have been a flimsy affair and without much power of resistance. Marthenson, one of the switchmen, testified, as shoAvn by the abstract: “The pieces of the partition in the car, I took out; they were broken all to pieces. The fiber of the lumber was not strong; it was pine lumber.” From this statement it would seem that the lumber was brittle, easily broken,' and probably had very little power of resistance.

E. J. Spratt testified: “I remember handling four or [592]*592five emigrant cars, and I believe they said a man got hurt in one of them. I remember one of the cars we had been handling was taken back to the yard office in order to take the man out; that was one of the string that we had been handling, yes, sir, just before that. Just before they came to take the car to the yard office we had been running them over the bump, the scale track, over the scales. I was car catcher — got on top of them to hold them, with brakes; after they had been cut off from the.

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71 F.2d 739 (Eighth Circuit, 1934)
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208 F. 115 (Eighth Circuit, 1913)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
136 N.W. 834, 91 Neb. 587, 1912 Neb. LEXIS 266, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/shults-v-chicago-burlington-quincy-railway-co-neb-1912.