South Chicago City Railway Co. v. Kinnare

117 Ill. App. 1, 1904 Ill. App. LEXIS 174
CourtAppellate Court of Illinois
DecidedOctober 31, 1904
DocketGen. No. 11,558
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 117 Ill. App. 1 (South Chicago City Railway Co. v. Kinnare) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Appellate Court of Illinois primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
South Chicago City Railway Co. v. Kinnare, 117 Ill. App. 1, 1904 Ill. App. LEXIS 174 (Ill. Ct. App. 1904).

Opinion

Mr. Justice Ball

delivered the opinion of the court.

This appeal is prosecuted from a judgment rendered in the trial court against appellant for negligently causing the death of Paul Christensen. The accident happened about two o’clock in the afternoon of Sunday, May 24, 1896, on Stony Island avenue, which runs north and south, near Sixty-ninth street, in the city of Chicago. Appellant was then operating a double track street railway on that avenue. The north-bound cars ran on the east track. The two feet in width east of and adjoining the east rail of that track was separated from the street pavement by plank set edgeways. The space between the rail and the plank was partly filled with “ slag,” the surface of which was several inches below the level of the street pavement of the track. Hext east of this plank the street for the width of either fifteen or sixteen feet (the evidence upon this point being contradictory) to the curb was paved with cedar blocks. The avenue and tracks were straight for a long distance north and south of the scene of the accident. The deceased was a business man aged thirty-six years at the time of his death. He had lived on the avenue south of Seventieth street for several years, and was well acquainted with the surroundings of the place where he was fatally hurt. On the day named he and one Peter Brask left the home of the deceased, each mounted upon a bicycle, and rode north upon the east side of the car tracks. The two men were going at a moderate pace, practically abreast, Brask being a few feet in advance. Deceased rode along the western half of this roadway and Brask along the eastern half. The block between Sixty-ninth and Seventieth streets, west of the avenue, but not east, is split by Sixtv-ninth place. Just after the bicycles had passed Sixty-ninth place they were met by a one-horse buggy, the horse trotting slowly, coming south in the middle of the roadway. This vehicle was on the wrong side of the highway. It should have been west of the car tracks. As the two men and the buggy approached, Brask turned to the east and the deceased turned to the west to pass it. When Brask, the buggy, and deceased were practically opposite, a train of appellant, consisting of an open grip and an open trailer, came from the south at “ full speed,” (admittedly ten to thirteen miles per hour), without other warning than the ringing of the gong as the train crossed Seventieth street, and attempted to pass them at a time when the deceased was so near the tracks that the “ wabbling ” of his wheel brought him into contact with the cars. The fall resulting therefrom caused his death.

This accident happened May 24, 1896. The declaration, consisting of one count, was filed January 7, 1897. It alleges that while “ the said Paul Christensen was in the exercise of due and ordinary care for his own safety, the defendant through certain of its servants then and there in charge and control of one of its said electric street cars being operated by it upon said street railway, as aforesaid, then and there so negligently, carelessly and improperly ran, managed and operated said street car that said street car thereby then and there ran against and struck the said Paul Christensen and knocked him off his bicycle upon the ground,” etc.

An additional count was filed January 30, 1902, which sets up that while “ the said Paul Christensen was exercising ordinary care and caution for his own safety, the defendant, through certain of its servants, then and there in charge and control of one of its north-bound street cars, which it was then and there operating upon and along said street railway as aforesaid, then and there so negligently, carelessly and improperly ran, managed and operated said street car, that, as a direct result and in consequence thereof, said Paul Christensen was brought in collision, and contact with said street car, and was thereby then and there knocked off his said bicycle onto the ground there,” etc. Appellant filed a plea of the Statute of Limitations to this count. To that plea a demurrer was interposed, which was sustained. Appellant urges that sustaining the demurrer was reversible error.

In cases like the one at bar the rule is well settled that when, by an additional count, a new cause of action is introduced, the cause is treated as a new suit begun at the time when the additional count was filed; and if such count is filed more than two years after the date of the injury complained of, the defendant may plead the Statute of Limitations to that part of the declaration. Phelps v. Ill. Cent. Ry. Co., 94 Ill. 557; C., B. & Q. Ry. Co. v. Jones, 149 Ill. 361; Fish v. Farwell, 160 Ill. 236; Eylenfeldt v. Ill. Steel Co., 165 Ill. 185.

The Supreme Court in Ill. Cent. Ry. Co. v. Campbell, 170 Ill. 163, defines the cause of action in a personal injury case “ as the act or thing done, or omitted to be done, by the one by which an injury results to another.” In Swift & Co. v. Madden, 165 Ill. 41, it is defined to be “ The thing done or omitted to be done by one which confers upon another the right to sue—in other words, the act or wrong of the defendant towards the plaintiff which causes a grievance for which the law gives a remedy.”

The negligence charged in each of the counts in question is the same, namely, that the defendant carelessly and negligently operated the street car. The injury in each count is also the same. In the first count'it is alleged that the car, by reason of such negligence, ran against and struck the deceased; in the second count it is stated that by reason of such negligence the deceased was brought into collision and contact with such car. Here is no change in the cause of action. Hothing is done except to allege another way in which the negligence already charged caused the death of Christensen. The demurrer to the plea of the Statute of Limitations was properly sustained. C. & A. Ry. Co. v. Henneberry, 42 Ill. App. 128; Ill. Cent. Ry. Co. v. Souders, 178 Ill. 588.

There is no reversible error in the conduct of counsel for appellee during the examination of the witnesses, or in hiá argument to the jury. We must not be understood to commend all that was said by counsel; but in the heat of a sharply contested trial counsel are apt to say things that were better unsaid. The court who tried the cause knew better than we can know whether what was thus said was prejudicial to the rights of appellant. This question, with others, was presented to him on the hearing of the motion for a new trial. If the court was convinced that prejudicial error had intervened in the trial, it was his duty to grant that motion. The fact that he entered judgment herein shows the learned trial judge did not consider the conduct of counsel constituted reversible error; and after an examination of the record we are of the same mind. N. Chi. St. Ry. Co. v. Cotton, 140 Ill. 502; Siebert v. People, 143 Ill. 591.

The questions of reasonable care upon the part of the deceased and of negligence upon the part of appellant, are primarily for determination by the jury under proper instructions. 2 Thomp. on Neg., 1450. It is elementary that we have no right to interfere with the finding of the jury upon these questions unless such finding is clearly and manifestly against the weight of the evidence.

The roadway east of the tracks and east of the two feet in width of “ slag ” was either fifteen or sixteen feet wide.

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