Union Pacific Railroad Company v. Cogburn

315 P.2d 209, 136 Colo. 184, 1957 Colo. LEXIS 223
CourtSupreme Court of Colorado
DecidedSeptember 9, 1957
Docket17987
StatusPublished
Cited by26 cases

This text of 315 P.2d 209 (Union Pacific Railroad Company v. Cogburn) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Colorado primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Union Pacific Railroad Company v. Cogburn, 315 P.2d 209, 136 Colo. 184, 1957 Colo. LEXIS 223 (Colo. 1957).

Opinions

Mr. Justice Hall

delivered the opinion of the Court.

Plaintiffs in error were defendants below and we shall refer to them as defendants or to the Union Pacific Railroad Company as the railroad. We will refer to defendants in error as plaintiffs and shall at times refer to plaintiff Roland Rex Cogburn as Rex.

Plaintiffs brought this action to recover damages for personal injuries suffered by plaintiff, Rex, arising out of a collision of a car being driven by him with a train of defendant railroad standing on and blocking a public highway crossing. Plaintiff Harry R. Cogburn, father of Rex and joint owner of the car in question, seeks to recover for damages to the car and for medical and hospital expenses incurred in caring for his son and arising out of the collision.

Trial was to a jury which found the issues in favor of the plaintiffs and awarded each of them damages. Defendants bring the case here by writ of error relying upon five points for reversal, only two of which we consider:

(1) The evidence is insufficient to warrant submitting to the jury the question of defendants’ negligence or if it was negligent submitting to the jury the question as [187]*187to whether such negligence was the proximate cause of the injuries.
(2) The record discloses evidence of negligence on the part of plaintiff Rex which was the sole and proximate cause of his injuries.

There is no dispute in the evidence presented by the .parties except as to the question of the length of time the crossing was blocked. The evidence, construed in the light most favorable to the plaintiffs, shows the following: On October 22, 1954, the defendant owned main line railroad tracks and operated trains thereon between Fort Collins and Dent, Colorado, Dent being a few miles south of Greeley, Colorado, these tracks run in a northwesterly and southeasterly direction. On said date the defendant had made up a train of slightly more than one hundred freight cars, mostly of the gondola type loaded with beets headed southeasterly. At a point about 1300 feet southeasterly of the highway crossing where the collision occurred the track forks into a Y. At about 7:15 on the night in question this train proceeding southeasterly stopped for the purpose of cutting some cars out of the train and blocked the highway crossing. The train was divided leaving the rear fifty-two cars blocking the crossing, the nineteenth car from the caboose stood across the highway, each of the nineteen cars to the northwest of the crossing was forty feet long, the caboose being about eight hundred feet northwest of the crossing. Through the fault or negligence of one or more employees of defendant railroad a “bad cut” was made and not all of the cars were removed- from the train that should have been removed. It was therefore necessary to repeat the procedure in order to remove the cars designated for removal. This whole proceeding from the time the train was stopped until the time of the collision consumed about one hour and fifteen minutes. The normal and usual time for such proceeding is from ten to twenty minutes, having to make the second cut consumed an additional ten to fifteen minutes. The collision [188]*188occurred about five minutes after the commencement of the second cut. At the time of the collision the lights of the caboose were scarcely visible to one approaching on the highway from the east; headlights of the engine were not visible it being about % mile southeast of the crossing at the time of the collision. There was the usual cross-buck wooden railroad crossing sign on the south side of the highway and west of the crossing; there was no such sign on the north side of the highway east of the crossing; if there had ever been such a sign on the east side of the crossing it had been torn down, the only sign to the east of the crossing being a highway “All Buses Stop” sign on the north edge of the highway, very close to the track.

The top of the gondola car standing across the highway at the point of collision was ten feet five- inches from the top of the rail, the bottoms of the three dumps of the car were eleven inches above the top of the rail and the straight line bottom of the car four feet three inches above the top of the rail. This car was painted red or rusty red, with yellow lettering on the sides showing “Union Pacific” in letters about one foot high and with other letters and numbers smaller in size and reaching from near the top of the car to near the straight line bottom of the car. Much of the lettering being directly above the point of impact of plaintiff’s car. The evidence further shows that the train crew had been continuously on duty for thirteen and one half hours; that had the train been cut to the northwest of the crossing so as to leave the crossing open, the engine, due to the descending grade to Dent, did not have sufficient power to back the train for recoupling; had the train been stopped further to the north leaving the same number of cars uncoupled the crossing in question would have been left open, but three other highway crossings including a main highway would have been blocked. Had there been more men in the crew they could have left a watchman or two at the crossing. The train crew knew in advance that they were [189]*189going to block the crossing. Normally when there is to be an unusual delay the train is cut so as to leave the crossing open; this same train was so cut the night following the collision.

At about 8:00 p.m. on the night in question, the plaintiff, Roland Rex Cogburn, age 19, left his home about four miles southeast of the crossing driving a 1951 Ford Sedan, owned jointly by plaintiffs. The car was in good condition equipped with good lights and the windshield was clear. On leaving home he proceeded one mile west on a gravel road, two miles north on a paved road, then about one mile west on a gravel road to the railroad crossing where the collision occurred. Rex had lived in that part of the country all his life, had travelled that road and crossing twice a week for four or five months and had crossed the tracks proceeding east earlier the same day. He testified that he remembered crossing the Dent Branch track about one half mile east of the crossing where the collision occurred, and remembered approaching where he thought the second track was; does not know whether his lights were dim or bright, does not know how fast he was going nor how far ahead he could see. He looked right and left and saw no lights or cars. He saw no lights along where he knew the track to be and does not remember seeing anything in front of him; does not know how fast he was going when he crossed the first track but knows he slowed down, always slows down for tracks; the tracks are elevated so you have to slow down to see where you are going. He had never seen a train on this track before.

Warren Wiles, a witness for plaintiffs, testified that at about 7:45 p.m. on the night in question he had ap-’ proached this crossing from his home about % mile east of the crossing and as he approached he saw the lights of a car turning on the west side of the tracks and could see the train across the highway though it was hard to see it in the dark of night. He waited about five minutes and could not see the locomotive so turned around and [190]*190went clear around the section to his destination which was just to the west of the tracks and on the south side of the highway.

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Union Pacific Railroad Company v. Cogburn
315 P.2d 209 (Supreme Court of Colorado, 1957)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
315 P.2d 209, 136 Colo. 184, 1957 Colo. LEXIS 223, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/union-pacific-railroad-company-v-cogburn-colo-1957.