A Selection of Cases on the Law of Torts

by Unknown

It is claimed by the defendant’s counsel that off the crossings of the railroad the servants of the railroad company have a right to presume that there are no trespassers on the roadway; that they are not bound to look out for trespassers except for the safety of passengers or property in charge. It is also claimed that inasmuch as the road at the place where the plaintiff’s horses got on the track and were killed was fenced, on that account the defendant’s servants in charge of the train were not bound to look out for trespassing stock. Upon this question I only can charge you this: That if the railroad was fenced at the place where the horses got on and were killed, and this was known to the defendant’s employees, you have a right to look to that circumstance as reflecting upon and in determining whether the employees exercised ordinary care in the management of the train. But if they might, in the exercise of ordinary care, have discovered the animals, although they were trespassers on the roadway, other than at a crossing, in time to have prevented their destruction, it was their duty to do so; and if from such want of ordinary care they were not discovered in time to prevent their destruction, the defendant is liable for their loss to the plaintiff.[^[128]]

White, J. The whole charge is set out in the bill of exceptions. Considering its several parts in connection, and giving to the whole a fair construction, we deem it necessary only to notice two particulars in which it is objected to.

These are: 1. Whether the fact that the horses were trespassing on the track excused the servants of the defendant from the exercise of ordinary care; and, 2. Whether that fact, and the additional one that the road was fenced, excused the engineer, as respects the owner of stray animals, from looking ahead to see whether such animals were on the track or not.

In regard to the first of these particulars, it is contended on behalf of the railroad company that, as the horses were trespassing on the railroad, the company was exempt from using ordinary care to save them, and that it was only liable for what is called gross negligence.

The Court instructed the jury that the defendant had the right to the free and unobstructed use of its railroad track, and that the paramount duty of its employees was the protection of the passengers and property in the train, and the train itself. But this being their paramount duty, they were bound to use ordinary care and diligence so as not unnecessarily to injure the property of others.

We think the charge stated the law correctly. We see no good reason, in principle, why a party, so far as may be consistent with the full enjoyment of his own rights, ought not to use ordinary care so as not unnecessarily to injure the property of others.

It is true, the rule contended for by the counsel of the plaintiff in error is sustained by a number of authorities. But the later and better considered cases are to the contrary. Illinois Central R. R. Co. v. Middlesworth, 46 Ill. 494; Bemis v. Conn., &c. R. R., 42 Vt. 375; Isbell v. N. Y. R. R. Co., 27 Conn. 393; Redfield’s American Railway Cases, 355, 356.

The rule contended for has never been adopted in this State. It is, moreover, as respects railroad companies, inconsistent with our statute law on the subject. S. & C. 331.

The facts in the case of the C. H. & D. R. R. Co. v. Waterson & Kirk, 4 Ohio St. 424, cited and relied upon by the counsel of the plaintiff in error, were different from those in the case now before us, and we do not regard the rule there laid down as to the liability of the company in that case as applicable to this.

From what has been said of the charge in the first particular named, it would seem to follow that it is unobjectionable as respects the second. If it was the duty of the servants of the company, so far as was consistent with their other and paramount duties, to use ordinary care to avoid injuring animals on the track, they were, of course, bound to adopt the ordinary precautions to discover danger, as well as to avoid its consequences after it became known.