United Railways & Electric Co. v. Crain

91 A. 405, 123 Md. 332, 1914 Md. LEXIS 128
CourtCourt of Appeals of Maryland
DecidedApril 24, 1914
StatusPublished
Cited by34 cases

This text of 91 A. 405 (United Railways & Electric Co. v. Crain) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Maryland primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
United Railways & Electric Co. v. Crain, 91 A. 405, 123 Md. 332, 1914 Md. LEXIS 128 (Md. 1914).

Opinion

Pattison, J.,

delivered the opinion of the Court.

This is an action brought by the appellee, plaintiff below, against the appellant company to' recover for personal injuries received by the plaintiff in consequence of a collision between the car of the defendant and the automobile in which the plaintiff was riding as a passenger, resulting, as it is alleged, from the negligence of the defendant in the operation and management of its car. The injury was received at a crossing of a public highway in Baltimore county known as the North Point Road.

The record discloses that Harvey L. Goodman, a resident of Baltimore City, invited the plaintiff and others to ride with him in his automobile. The party consisted of Goodman, his wife, Miss Akehurst, Adolph Prutz and the plain *340 tiff'. The three women sat upon the bade seat and the two men upon the front seat of the automobile. Goodman, the owner of the automobile, and who was also a competent chauffeur, had the control and management of it on the occasion of the accident.

Neither Goodman nor the plaintiff was familiar with the load. Goodman had been upon it once before about a year prior to the accident and recalled that the defendant’s road crossed it, but did not know the exact point. A short while before reaching the crossing, when about three-fourths of a mile from it, Goodman testified, “I made mention to Mr. Prutz about this crossing being in the vicinity somewhere, I didn’t ls;now just where, but we should look out, keep looking out, that we did not get into any danger of an approaching car; so we both were on the lookout, I will say possibly threer-fourths of a mile, may be more than that, before we got to it, and we watched as close as we could watch for the railroad,” but they did- not see the track until .they were practically upon it. ' As Goodman expresses it, “At such time I heard the rumbling of a car coming at a- high rate of speed, * * “ and I looked and saw the car practically within a few feet of me, and the only thing I could do, there was nothing more, the thought came to my mind to turn the wheel as short as possible and run with the car,” This he attempted to do, hoping, as he said, to avoid a collision, or failing in this, that the car would so strike the automobile as to- give it what he termed a “side swipe,” and thereby avoid the danger of those in the automfobile getting under the wheels of the car. He partially made the turn, but did not avoid the collision. The left wheel of the automobile came in contact with the front car at or near its front truck, as stated by plaintiff’s witnesses, or at the middle of the car, as stated by the defendant’s witnesses, which resulted in turning over the automobile and catching the plaintiff under it, inflicting upon her the injuries complained of.

*341 At the time of the accident the automobile was moving southward on said public road, and the defendant’s train, consisting of two cars, was moving westward towards the city. The road of the defendant company crosses the highway at nearly right angles. Its tracks are laid with “T” rails spiked to crossties, with gravel and crushed stone ballast, which at the crossing was covered with dirt, bringing the surface between the rails to a level with the road. The plaintiff’s witnesses testified, and they were not contradicted, that the white sand of the road and the shell dust covering the space between the rails made it difficult to- observe the crossing, and for this reason could not see it until they got practically upon it.

There is on the east side of the highway, both on the north and south sides of the railroad, at the crossing, a woods which extends within a few feet of the said public highway and also extends to the right of way of defendant’s road, and on the north side of the crossing the land has an elevation of three or four feet above the bed of both the highway and the railroad, and a car approaching the said public road from the east cannot he seen from said highway until a point is reached thereon within a few feet of the crossing. This fact is shown by the testimony of the motorman of the car, who testified, “When I got about twelve feet from the hTorth Point Road, I could see about twelve or fifteen feet upon the RTorth Point Road, and I seen the automobile coming at a high rate of speed. I saw lie would hit me and I tried to stop as soon as I could,” and with the use of air brakes and the sand lever he stopped the car at a distance of one hundred and twenty .o one hundred and twenty-five feet from the west side of the 'public road. It would, therefore, follow that Goodman, in the automobile, at a point twelve or fifteen feet from the track could have seen only twelve or fifteen feet eastward up the railroad. But upon the westward side of the highway the country is open, sloping towards the west, and the poles fifteen to eighteen inches in diameter, bearing the feed, trol *342 ley and span wires, located on each side of the track at a distance of one hundred to one hundred and ten feet apart, may be readily seen from the highway, extending for a distance of about a half mile to the westward.

As stated by the defendant in his brief, the “special exceptions to the plaintiff’s first and second prayers and the defendant’s first, second, third, fourth, fifth and sixth prayers, present the question of whether there was any legally sufficient evidence of causal negligence on the part of the defendant which resulted in the accident of which the plaintiffs complain.”

The defendant contends “that the evidence shows that the recklessness of the driver was the only negligent act having any causal connection with the accident, and that there is no evidence that the accident was caused by any negligence on the part of the defendant or its employees.”

The evidence shows that the crossing was one of more than ordinary danger, and therefore required the exercise of more than ordinary care, both on the part of parties attempting to cross the tracks of the railroad, and of the managers of passing trains. This duty is mutual and reciprocal, and not confined to one party only. The railroad trains, from the nature of things, have the precedence of passing the crossings of public ways unobstructed; but it is the duty of those directing the trains to be careful to give all proper and sufficient signals of them' approach, and to take all reasonable precaution, in view of the nature of the crossings, to avoid collision. Failure in the strict performance of this duty to the public whereby injury is inflicted upon individuals, will subject the company to liability to respond in damages to the injured party. Philadelphia, Baltimore & Washington R. R. Co. v. Hogeland, 66 Md. 160.

The record in this case discloses no legally sufficient evidence of any negligent act of the defendant having any causal connection with the accident complained of unless it be that it *343 failed, to give the required signal of its approach to the crossing.

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Bluebook (online)
91 A. 405, 123 Md. 332, 1914 Md. LEXIS 128, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/united-railways-electric-co-v-crain-md-1914.