Whalen v. Great Northern Railway Co.

137 N.W. 576, 23 N.D. 607, 1912 N.D. LEXIS 125
CourtNorth Dakota Supreme Court
DecidedJuly 15, 1912
StatusPublished

This text of 137 N.W. 576 (Whalen v. Great Northern Railway Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering North Dakota Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Whalen v. Great Northern Railway Co., 137 N.W. 576, 23 N.D. 607, 1912 N.D. LEXIS 125 (N.D. 1912).

Opinion

Goss, J.

This is an appeal from a judgment entered on a verdict for $500 against defendant for alleged negligence,, resulting in plaintiff’s sickness from exposure endured while en route on a freight train from Minneapolis to Williston, such exposure occurring between Minneapolis and Wilmar, Minnesota.

The complaint recites a relationship of carrier and passenger existing between defendant and plaintiff, arising from defendant’s contract to transport two cars of horses and emigrant moveables, and a negligent performance thereof to plaintiff’s injury. The negligence is charged to have consisted in starting, without notice to plaintiff the freight car in which he was working at arranging its contents for the trip, and without affording him opportunity to leave it and get to a place of comfort, and because of it being kept continuously moving he [609]*609was compelled to remain within the cold and unlighted stock car from Minneapolis to Wilmar, during an entire cold and stormy night, resulting in plaintiff, because thereof, contracting a sickness to his damage in the sum of $2,000.

Many assignments of error aré urged for reversal of judgment, among them being one based on the denial of defendant’s motion for a directed verdict, made at the close of the testimony testing the sufficiency of the evidence to warrant the submission to the jury of any question of negligence.

The first question then is whether, under the testimony, the verdict founded on defendant’s negligence as a cause of action can be sustained. We give the .following résumé of the testimony bearing on negligence. We assume the testimony is sufficient to raise a question of fact on negligence in defendant’s starting plaintiff’s car on the trip without previous warning, with him inside of it arranging its contents, and without previous opportunity afforded him to get to a caboose if one was attached to the train.

Plaintiff testifies:

I didn’t notice how many cars there were in the train. There were more than fifteen or twenty cars between ours and the caboose. We noticed them making up the train while we were engaged in loading our cars. They made the train up as far as I know out of cars at the freight platform. The cars at the platform had not been moved while we were loading, until the train started.

Q. Now, the train never stopped until'it got out of Minneapolis some distance?
A. No, it didn’t. They hitched on to our cars, and a few more were added, and then run out to the end of the switch and backed in, and then started. I don’t know of these cars of ours having been pulled down to Clearwater junction and left there until the other train came from Como and' picked them up. That may be so, but not that I know of. They pulled us out.
Q. They pulled you out and left you standing in the yard -until the other train came along ?
A. It didn’t look like the yard to me.
[610]*610Q. After your cars started to pull away from that depot platform, didn’t they stop up in the yard for a while until this other train came along and picked them up ?
A. The only stop I remember is somewhere they stopped long enough to couple on the main train. We were pulled away from the depot some where around 10 o’clock. I don’t remember any station or stop that night outside of Minneapolis. We reached Wilmar somewhere around 5 o’clock. We didn’t see any man connected with the railroad to talk to after the cars started from the depot the first time. At places where the train stopped I made no effort to get out or to see the train crew or anybody. We were in charge of those horses, taking care of them. We knew we had a right to ride on that train, in the caboose or anywhere else. I understood this from the contract. I didn’t have the time with me. I had a watch, but it was not running. I don’t believe Gorman had a watch. I have no recollection of stopping. I don’t know where we did stop until we got to Wilmar. When I looked out of the door I saw no lights.
Q. Were there lights in the Minneapolis yards there?
A. I don’t remember seeing any lights there when we stopped..
Q. You didn’t see any lights there at all when you stopped — is that what you said?
A. Yes.
Q. Then you did stop there up in the yards a short ways from the depot ?
A. I don’t know how far it was.
Q. How long did you remain there when you stopped ?
A. We remained there long enough, while the train was made up there.
Q. Then your cars were put in the train there ?
A. Yes.
Q. And your two cars were left alone standing on the track there for a while, is that a fact ?
A. Yes.
Q. And there was a lot of switching done, was there, in making up this full train, is that right?
A. I guess there was; I didn’t pay any attention to it.
Q. You knew that the engines were working around through the [611]*611yards, and they were coupling the train up, making up the train into which your two cars were put — you knew that to be a fact, didn’t you ?
A. Yes, I knew that to be a fact.'
Q. And after that work had been done and the train completed, it pulled out, you remember that?
A. Yes. We were loading while they Were making up the train. This was not after we pulled down from the depot, the train was made up on the main siding or track right out. from the depot. I guess it would be west of the depot, a matter of three quarters of a mile or so.
Q. I can’t just quite understand the position that you Intend to take, because, as I .understand it, there is a little conflict; is it not a fact that your cars pulled out there a short - ways in the yards where they stood for while ? >
A. The only place where I remember of that is I remember in the yards where they came in with the-engine and hooked on to us and pulled up to end of the switch and put us in the main train, and left.
Q. Some time elapsed after they pulled you out to the end of the switch before you were put in the train ?
A. No.
Q. And you mean to say that when.you were started away from the loading platform at the depot and pulled put to the end of the main switch, you were immediately put in the .train, and left town ?
A. That is my answer, yes. I can’t say how far out I was pulled because it was dark. They pulled us out of the Minneapolis yards. This switch that I refer to was not in the Minneapolis yards. The switch was probably a mile away from the depot. Our ears stopped long enough to reswitch hack. They took the engine off of our cars, and put it on those other ears there, -and put-both together and pulled out.
Q. What were you doing while your two. cars were standing there in the yard ? •

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Bluebook (online)
137 N.W. 576, 23 N.D. 607, 1912 N.D. LEXIS 125, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/whalen-v-great-northern-railway-co-nd-1912.