Wyatt v. Kansas City Terminal Railway Co.

74 S.W.2d 51, 229 Mo. App. 179, 1934 Mo. App. LEXIS 102
CourtMissouri Court of Appeals
DecidedJuly 2, 1934
StatusPublished
Cited by7 cases

This text of 74 S.W.2d 51 (Wyatt v. Kansas City Terminal Railway Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Missouri Court of Appeals primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Wyatt v. Kansas City Terminal Railway Co., 74 S.W.2d 51, 229 Mo. App. 179, 1934 Mo. App. LEXIS 102 (Mo. Ct. App. 1934).

Opinion

TRIMBLE, J.

In this appeal the action is by a minor, who is now a widow, suing for damages for the death of her husband alleged to have been caused by the negligence of the defendant railway company and J. R. Quigg, the railway company’s “roundhouse foreman.” Originally, and up to the close of plaintiff’s case in chief, her prayer was for damages in the sum of $10,000, but she then, by leave of court, amended said prayer by asking for only $7,500.

Thereafter, and before the case was submitted to the' jury, the court, over the objections and exceptions of plaintiff, and at the request of both defendants, gave instructions directing the jury to return a verdict for them and against the plaintiff, for the reason that she “is not entitled to recover.” Thereupon, and before this instruction was acted upon, the plaintiff took an involuntary nonsuit with leave to move to set aside. This motion was duly filed and overruled, whereupon the plaintiff, in due and proper form, appealed.

The alleged negligence and the death of plaintiff’s husband occurred on November 2, 1931, in the private railroad yards of the defendant Terminal Railway, located just west of Southwest Boule *181 vard at or near Twenty-seventh Street in Kansas City, Missouri. The yards occupied a large area, near the south end of which was a roundhouse for engines with a machine shop in the north end or portion of said roundhouse. A large number of railway tracks extended in a northerly direction from the roundhouse, but in railroad parlance this direction would be termed north and south. About 300 feet north of the roundhouse, a “cinder pifr” began and extended on north for a distance of 300 feet. It was about twenty feet wide and eight feet deep. The bottom and sides of the pit were of concrete except near the top where, from the top of the ground, brickwork sloped, at an angle of forty-five degrees, down to water kept in said pit for the purpose of extinguishing hot or burning cinders, coals or ashes dumped from engines, which passed over each side of said pit lengthwise, on their way to the roundhouse. A railway track passed along each side of the pit, so constructed that the inner rail of each of said tracks was out over the water in the pit for a distance of nearly half the width of said tracks, which were of standard gauge. Between the two inner rails of said tracks alongside and partly over said pit there was an open pool of water in the pit, the width of which is the distance between said tracks, wider than a standard gauge railway track, in fact there is evidence that it was ten feet. At the ends of the pool between the two inner rails were iron grates extending out from the ends of the pool about fifteen feet, consisting of “about three-eighths or one-half inch iron set up on edge.” (The photographs of the pool do not disclose these gratings and we cannot give any better or clearer statement of how they were located or what office they performed.)

The plaintiff’s husband, as may be surmised, was drowned in said pool or cinder pit, some time between ten-thirty A. M., when deceased was last seen, and four-thirty P. M., when his body was discovered therein. No one saw the occurrence, but it happened in the daylight of a bright, clear day.

Plaintiff’s amended petition on which her evidence in chief was heard, alleged that — ■

“ ‘Deceased’ was about the business of delivering box lunches for employees of defendants, with the knowledge and consent of defendants and at their invitation, and was for that purpose upon the premises controlled and supervised by defendants with their knowledge and consent, and invitation, he was caused to fall into and get into a cinder pit filled with water and cinders and other substances unknown to plaintiff, and on account of the negligence of defendants as hereinafter set forth, was caused to get into and fall into said cinder pit on the property of defendants above set forth, . . . and was thereby drowned and strangled causing the death of deceased.”

*182 The negligence thus alleged in general terms was immediately thereafter more specifically stated as follows:

“Defendants negligently failed and neglected to exercise ordinary care under the circumstances to provide a reasonable warning or reasonable barrier or reasonable guard or reasonable protection or reasonable signal of any kind or character whatsoever so as to reasonably warn deceased or those walking on the above property of the danger of said open cinder pit, although defendants knew or by the exercise of ordinary care under the circumstances could have known that said open cinder pit without guards or warnings was dangerous and that deceased and persons walking on said property near or at said cinder pit were likely to fall therein and be injured or killed, . . .
“Defendants were further negligent in that they negligently failed to warn deceased of the dangerous condition of said cinder pit and apprise him of the fact that said cinder pit was unprotected and that he was likely to or might fall into it and thereby be injured or killed.
“Each of the above negligent acts or omissions of defendants jointly cooperated as the sole proximate cause of the death of deceased.”

The separate answers of defendants each contained a general denial, together with a plea of contributory negligence couched in these words:

“Deceased, King Dalton Wyatt, knew of said cinder pit or saw, or, by the exercise of ordinary care, could have seen said cinder pit before getting into a position where he would get into or fall into said cinder pit, and states that he either got into said cinder pit intentionally or negligently failed to look out for the same and thereby got into or fell into said cinder pit, and said negligence of the deceased caused or contributed to his death in whole or in part.”

The reply was a general denial.

It was agreed that the death of plaintiff’s husband occurred on the property of the Kansas City Terminal Railway Company, and that he was drowned.

The evidence first offered in plaintiff’s behalf was that of Peterson, an employee in the yards of the defendant railway. He testified that in November, 1931, he was, and still is, working for said company under defendant Quigg, the foreman in charge of the roundhouse and grounds, including the cinder pit. Witness testified that he knew plaintiff’s husband, King Wyatt, “the little fellow with the arm off,” before he died; that Wyatt brought to him in the yards lunches made by the United Box Lunch Company, which Peterson bought of him for twenty cents each and resold them to the men in the yards for twenty-five cents each. The defendant company had built an ordinary icebox with two locks thereon, one of which witness gave to Wyatt. The icebox was to keep these lunches in. Wyatt had *183 been delivering these lunches in the yards for about a year before his death. Mr. Quigg, witness supposed, knew about that; he never asked him particularly, but Quigg had been present when these box lunches were brought in by Wyatt and no one objected or ordered him off.

Witness recalled the day King Wyatt drowned. It was about the second of November, 1931. The day was Monday, the plant was open and working.

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Bluebook (online)
74 S.W.2d 51, 229 Mo. App. 179, 1934 Mo. App. LEXIS 102, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/wyatt-v-kansas-city-terminal-railway-co-moctapp-1934.