Swegle v. Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad

196 Iowa 413
CourtSupreme Court of Iowa
DecidedApril 3, 1923
StatusPublished
Cited by5 cases

This text of 196 Iowa 413 (Swegle v. Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Iowa primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Swegle v. Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad, 196 Iowa 413 (iowa 1923).

Opinion

Arthur, J.

Plaintiff lived on a farm about two and one-half miles southwest of Grand River, and about a mile west of the crossing on which the accident occurred. On the day of the injury, plaintiff left home about 2:25 P. M., driving a team and empty wagon, going to Grand River on a business errand. He was driving a wooden-wheeled wagon, with ordinary lower box, and was sitting on a homemade seat. He was driving a team, one blind mare 7 years old and a horse 5 years old, weighing about 1,250 or 1,300 pounds each. The' team was being driven at about two or two and one-half miles an hour, at an ordinary walk. It was a chilly March day, wind blowing quite hard, ground frozen, roads smooth. Plaintiff was dressed in overalls, ducking coat, and winter cap. At the time plaintiff approached the crossing, he was sitting on the right side of the seat, driving the team. Plaintiff reached the crossing at about 2:40 P. M., and in going over the railroad track, was struck by a train running east, or rather, northeast, and suffered personal injury; and one of the horses was killed, and the wagon and the harness were destroyed.

The general direction of the railroad across the state is ea. and west; but at the crossing in question, and for some mil¿ on either side, the railroad track extends from southwest tc, northeast. The highway in question crosses the railroad right of way about a mile and a half southwest (west, as it is called in railroading) of the station of Grand River, in Decatur County, Iowa.

[415]*415I. Plaintiff testified, in substance, that he was born in December, 1890; that he had lived with his parents all his life, on his father’s farm; that his occupation had always been farming; that his schooling was to the eighth grade; that he had never had any serious illness, prior to the time of the accident and his injury on March 6, 1920; that his health had always been good up to that time; that, during the nine years last past, he had lived with his father on a 165-acre farm located two and one-half miles southwest of Grand Eiver; that, in going from the farm to Grand Eiver, they go north first, half a mile, then east a mile, north a half mile, and then east a half mile into Grand Eiver; that the residence on his father’s farm was about 35 rods south of the railroad- track; that he was familiar with the schedule of the trains on the road in question; that, at the time, two passenger trains went east and two west, and a freight train went in each direction each day; that the first east-bound passenger train was due in Grand Eiver at 2:33 P. M., and that was the train he collided with; that said train goes by his home at from 2:28 to 2:30 P. M.; that the train that struck him, the east-bound train which passes his house at from 2:20 to 2:30, and reaches Grand Eiver at 2:33 P. M., was seldom late, — perhaps would be late once in three months; that the track is down-grade, beginning about a quarter of a mile southwest, sloping towards the crossing where he was struck; that, the day he was injured, he was driving a team and wagon, — had started to Grand Eiver on a business errand; that the wagon was empty; that he left home at about 2:25 P. M.; that, if the train that struck him had been running on time, it should have passed his home at 2:28 to 2:30, and that he started from home from 3 to 5 minutes ahead of the train time of passing his home; that he was driving a low wooden-wheeled wagon, with just a lower box, and with a homemade seat with straight sides, about 8 inches high, — the back a little higher; that the wagon was solid, and there was nothing to rattle about it; that the railroad runs through their farm, and they have fields on both sides of the track; that the blind mare he was driving noticed trains; that, when a whistle is blown or bell rung, she will prick up her ears and jump and throw her head more than an ordinary horse; that he never noticed a train pass when the mare was within [416]*416hearing distance of it that she did not give some indication of hearing it; that, when he was driving this mare and her mate, he had to hold them and watch them a great deal, to keep them in the road; that the mare did not keep the road well; that, on the day and trip in question, as he was driving alone, he had his feet braced against the end gate, to hold the team; that, if he did not keep a tight line, the mare would go into ditches that were on the side of the road; that he had to watch his team closely, on account of the ditches by the road; that the horse was hard-mouthed, always riding the bits; that he was driving at about two and one-half miles an hour, — just an ordinary walk; that he kept a tight rein on the team all the time; that, about half a mile west of the crossing, Floyd Russell, a neighbor boy, got into the wagon and rode with him, sitting with him on the north side of the seat; that, when he was about a half a mile west of the crossing, he thought he heard the whistle of the passenger train for the crossing at his home; that, if it had been the train whistling at such crossing, the train would have passed the crossing where he was struck and.-would have been at Grand River by the time he reached the crossing; that Mr. Davis lived three or four hundred feet west of the crossing; that the Davis buildings are on an elevation considerably higher than the crossing; that the road runs east and west at the Davis place; that from the Davis place you go down a steep hill; that there is a hedge fence clear along on the south side of the road as you go east from the Davis house, — -part of it is 20 feet high, and the trees are about a foot to 3 feet apart, and from 3 to 5 inches in diameter; that west of the high hedge there is a lower hedge, perhaps 5 or 6 feet high; that the road east from the Davis place is graded so that there is a bank on the south side, about 6 feet high, for a short distance; that the hedge fence extends eastv to within 94 feet of the center of the railroad track; that the east end of the hedge fence is about 10 or 12 feet from the railroad right-of-way fence; that the weeds on the right of way had not been cut or burned; that there is a deep, long cut through which the track passes, the north end of which is about 1,400 feet southwest of the crossing in question ; that, when he reached the east end of the hedge fence, he believed that the train which afterwards struck him had passed [417]

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Bluebook (online)
196 Iowa 413, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/swegle-v-chicago-burlington-quincy-railroad-iowa-1923.