Southern Railway Co. v. Smith

50 So. 390, 163 Ala. 174, 1909 Ala. LEXIS 497
CourtSupreme Court of Alabama
DecidedJune 30, 1909
StatusPublished
Cited by18 cases

This text of 50 So. 390 (Southern Railway Co. v. Smith) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Alabama primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Southern Railway Co. v. Smith, 50 So. 390, 163 Ala. 174, 1909 Ala. LEXIS 497 (Ala. 1909).

Opinion

SIMPSON, J.

— This action was brought by the appellee to recover damages for the death of his intestate, Robert Taylor Smith, alleged to have been caused by the negligence of' the defendant in running its train of locomotive and cars.

The first assignment of error insisted on is to the action of the court in overruling the demurrers to the fourth count of the complaint. We think that, when the said count alleges that the employes of the company “discovered the plaintiff’s intestate on the track in time to avoid injuring him,” the plain and obvious meaning Is that they discovered that it was a small child on the [181]*181track, and if that ivas not true, but they merely discovered some object which they did not recognize as a child, that would be proper subject for a plea, and not a demurrer ; nor do we think it was necessary for the pleader to allege that the defendant’s employes discovered that he could not- or would, not extricate himself from his perilous position. The presitmption that one on a railroad track will move off on seeing a train approaching does not apply to a child only six years old. “It is not to be supposed that one of such tender age would appreciate the perilous position, or have sufficient judgment and discretion to extricate himself.” — So. Ry. v. Forrister, Adm’r., 158 Ala. 477, 48 South. 69. There was no error in overruling the demurrer to said fourth count.

The next insistence is that the'court erred in overruling the demurrer to the fifth count. This court has frequently held that the employes of a railroad company are not under any obligation to keep a lookout for a trespasser, and that this rule .applies equally to children as to grown persons. It has also held that where the road runs through a thickly populated locality, where persons are in the habit of crossing in such numbers and with such frequency, which is known to the person in charge of the train, that he has reason to believe there are persons in exposed positions on the track, he will be held to a knowledge of the probable consequences of maintaining great speed at, such places, and must consequently keep a lookout, in order to avoid injury. — Ga. Pac. Ry. v. Lee, 92 Ala. 262, 9 South. 230; Ala. Grt. So. R. R. v. Moorer, 116 Ala. 642, 645, 22 South. 900; So. Ry. v. Bush, 122 Ala. 470, 26 South. 168; N. C. & St. L. Ry. v. Harris, 142 Ala. 249, 37 South. 704, 110 Am. St. Rep. 29; s. c. (second appeal) 44 South. 963; Highland Avenue & Belt R. R. v. Robbins, 124 Ala. 114, 116, [182]*182118, 27 South. 422, 82 Am. St. Rep. 153. This court has also held that, it is necessary in a complaint to aver facts showing that the person injured, whether infant or adult, was not a trespasser. — Gadsden & Attalla Ry. v. Julian, 133 Ala. 371, 32 South. 155; So. Ry. v. Bush, supra, 112 Ala. 481, 482, 26 South. 168. Where a child 19 months old, in crossing a, railroad near a. crossing, “turned up the track,” she thereby became a trespasser, and the railroad company owed it no duty, save to avoid injuring it after discovery of its peril. — -N. C. & St. L. Ry. v. Harris, supra. The court, also, in recognizing the duty to keep a lookout in populous localities, said: “But, actionable negligence being a failure1 to discharge a legal duty to the person injured, if there is no duty there is no negligence. And, even if the defendant owed the duty to keep a lookout for persons rightfully on the track, but owned none to the plaintiff, because he was a trespasser, no action will lie, for the duty must be to the person injured.” — Birminghmi Ry., L. & P. Co. v. Jones, 153 Ala. 157, 45 South. 179, 180; and it has been recently held that a complaint is demurrm ble because it “fails to show either that plaintiff’s intestate, when injured, was not a trespasser on defendant’s track, or that defendant’s servants in charge of the train became aware of her perilous position on the track, and were thereafter guilty of actionable misconduct.” — So. Ry. v. Forrister, supra. Count 5 does not allege facts showing that the intestate was not a trespasser. From all that appears in the count, the child may have been lying down on the track, walking up and down thereon, or in various other ways may have been a trespasser, in which case the duty to keep a lookout would not apply. Construing the count strictly against the pleader, the demurrer should have been sustained.

[183]*183' There was no error in the refusal to give charge 38, requested hy the defendant. The charge is argumentative •and abstract. There was nothing in the evidence tending to show that the engineer’s duties to passengers and the United States mails conflicted in any way with his duty to lookout.

Charge 39, requested by the defendant, is argumentative, and was properly refused.

Charge 26, requested hy the defendant, was properly Tefused. While we do not feel called upon to decide that the evidence shows that the place in question was in such frequent and constant use as to require the lookout, yet we are not prepared to say as a matter of law, that it was not.

Charges 16, 15, 24, and 21, requested by the defendant, are argumentative, and were properly refused.

Charges 8, 7, and 2, requested by the defendant, should have been given.

Section 1406, Rev. Code 1867, being a codification of Acts 1851-52, p. 45, made a railroad company liable for all stock killed. Subsequently (Acts 1857-58, p. 15) a railroad company was made liable for injuries to persons or stock from failure to comply with regulations at certain places, and by a later act (Act Jan. 31, 1861, p. 37, § 1) it was provided that the railroad company should be liable for damages to persons or stock from a failure to comply with previous sections, “or any negligence,” and that, “whenever stock is killed or injured, the burden is on the railroad to show that the requirements of the preceding sections were complied with, at the time and place when and where the injury was done.”. — -Rev. Code 1867, § 1401. This court held that the effect of these statutes was that,, if the injury to stock occurred at one of the places mentioned, the burden was on the railroad company to show compliance [184]*184with the statute, if at any other place the burden was on the railroad company to show that it was not the result of negligence. — M. & O. R. R. Co. v. Williams, 53 Ala. 595, 599, 600. This last proposition is based upon the fact that the owner cannot know what train killed his stock, or who,had charge of it (page 600).

Section 1700 of the Code of 1876 is substantially the same as 1401 of the Code of 1867, and this court held that tiie statute had been re-enacted with the construction. — E. T., Va. & Ga. R. R. v. Bayliss, 74 Ala. 150, 159. Section 1147 of the Code of 1886 is the same, except that the burden of proof in regard to stock killed is placed on the railroad company only when killed or injured “at any one of the places specified in the three preceding sections.” The act of Feb. 28, 1887 (Pamph. Acts 1886-87, p.

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Bluebook (online)
50 So. 390, 163 Ala. 174, 1909 Ala. LEXIS 497, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/southern-railway-co-v-smith-ala-1909.