Yazoo & Mississippi Valley Railroad v. Byrd

42 So. 286, 89 Miss. 308
CourtMississippi Supreme Court
DecidedNovember 15, 1906
StatusPublished
Cited by20 cases

This text of 42 So. 286 (Yazoo & Mississippi Valley Railroad v. Byrd) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Mississippi Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Yazoo & Mississippi Valley Railroad v. Byrd, 42 So. 286, 89 Miss. 308 (Mich. 1906).

Opinion

Mayes, J.,

delivered the opinion of the court.

Some time in June, 1904, Iliram Byrd took passage on one of the trains of the Yazoo & Mississippi Valley Railroad Company from Natchez to New Orleans. The train on which he took his passage was an excursion train, and there is considerable conflict in the testimony as to whether or not the train was overcrowded on that occasion; but there is much testimony going to show that the train was crowded, and for this reason Byrd took a position on the platform of one of the cars, instead of taking his seat on the inside. There is also some testimony tending to show that Byrd had been drinking, and that at the time the accident befell him he was intoxicated. Byrd was a barber, about thirty [317]*317years of age, and when at work earned about fifteen to twenty dollars a week, according to some of the testimony. After passing Harriston, a station on appellant’s line of railway, and while the train was turning a curve near Applewhite, Byrd -was either suddenly jarred off by the lurch of the train while turning this ciirve, or he was accidentally pushed off by some of his companions. At all events, he fell from the train while .standing outside on the platform. The passengers on board of the train immediately made known this fact to the conductor, and asked that the train be stopped and Byrd taken aboard. The conductor refused to do this, assigning as a reason that another train was soon due to follow, and he could not stop his train at .this place, but when he reached the next station, some short distance further down, he would send back for Byrd. After reaching this station, Byrd was not sent back for immediately, but was not picked Up for about three hours. In short, he was left to lie alongside of the track, where he had fallen, without any attention, in midsummer, for three hours or more, and in the meantime there came up a heavy rain, which he was in. Byrd died on September 6, 1904, in Wesson, Mississippi, after having spent some time in the hospital at Natchez. It was also testified to by one of the physicians in attendance on.Byrd at Natchez— Dr. Chamberlain — that he had treated Byrd in May, 1904, for incipient tuberculosis, and that Byrd had marked symptoms of consumption; that he saw Byrd after the accident, and that he had only suffered some minor bruises, was walking around, and complained of his ankle; and that the injury received was not calculated to produce death, in his judgment. Dr. Brown, the physician in charge of the Natchez hospital, stated that he had known Byrd for about ten years, and that he had been several times in the hospital suffering from acute alcoholism and paralysis. When Byrd came to the hospital suffering from the injuries received from the fall, he made an examination of him, and he. could not have died from the injuries received. Dr. Rowan, the physician at Wesson, who last attended him, stated that Byrd [318]*318died of septicaemia. A peremptory instruction was asked for. after appellees had introduced their evidence, and refused by the court, and we think properly refused. .There was a judgment for plaintiffs in the sum of $1,000, and the railroad company appeals, and a cross-appeal is taken by appellees.

The fact remains that Byrd fell from the train under circumstances which may or may not have prevented his recovering anything against the company, according to the circumstances, and was allowed to lie in the sun and beating rain for three hours after he had fallen, without attention from any one, save by a negro in no way connected with the railroad company, who, seeing that a rain was coming up, pulled him out of a gully into which he .had fallen, to save him from drowning. All the facts were submitted to the jury — the fact of Byrd’s being on the platform; .the fact of his being permitted to remain exposed to the sun and rain for three hours; the testimony of the physicians, and as to his intoxicated condition — and, the jury having passed on the facts and holding the company liable, we are not warranted by anything that appears in the record in disturbing the verdict on the facts. It was not negligence per se, under the facts shown in this case, for Byrd to be out on the platform, instead of inside of the car; but it was a question to be passed on by the jury. Appellant cannot overcrowd its cars with passengers, making it impossible to obtain seats in safe places, and excuse itself from liability by saying a passenger under these circumstances was riding in a dangerous place. Ordinarily, it is negligence to ride on the platform of a car, instead of in .the place which is provided for the seating of passengers inside; but this is not an inflexible rule, and, when the railroad company has failed to provide sufficient cars to seat its passengers, it then becomes a question of fact as to whether a passenger was or was not guilty of negligence in riding on the platform. This question was properly submitted to the jury under proper instructions, and we see no error. Lehr v. Steinway, 23 N. E. Rep., 889; 2 Wood on Railroads, sec. 308. The facts in this case are [319]*319widely different from the facts in the case of Dougherty v. Railroad Co., 84 Miss., 502 (36 South. Rep., 699), and that case has no application here. Mr. Dougherty was thrown from the train in trying to pass from one car to another, in the night time, while the train was running' on a three-degree curve at a rate of speed of forty-five or fifty miles an hour, and the court held that if the act of going from one car to another under the circumstances was voluntary, which question had been submitted to the jury and passed on by them in favor of the railroad company — that is, that it was voluntary on the part of Dougherty' — that the accident was the result of Dougherty’s negligence, and he could not recover. It was not attempted to be shown in that case, as in this, that his going on the platform was due to the overcrowding of the cars, thereby making it necessary to stand on the platform.

It is further insisted by defendants that the court erred in modifying the first, fifth, seventh, and eighth instructions asked by them. We are relieved from the necessity of discussing whether or not the modifications complained of did or did not constitute error, since the original instructions themselves were incorrect. The .court held in the case of Miss. Cent. R. R. Co. v. Hardy, 88 Miss., 732 (41 South. Rep., 508), that where an instruction is asked, which is erroneous and is modified by the court, the modification of the instruction cannot be assigned as error, where the instruction has been used before the jury. If the party asking the instruction is not content with it as modified, he should decline to read it to the jury, in order to avail himself of any error in the action of the court. See, also, Railroad Co. v. Suddoth, 70 Miss., 265 (12 South. Rep., 205).

By the first instruction the jury is told that defendant company is not liable if the injury occurred to Byrd while he was voluntarily on the platform, if there was no necessity for his being there, if the injury happened “by reason'of the usual and ordinary operation and running of the train.” The “usual and ordinary operation and running of the train” might itself have [320]

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Bluebook (online)
42 So. 286, 89 Miss. 308, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/yazoo-mississippi-valley-railroad-v-byrd-miss-1906.