191 Iowa 1351 | Iowa | 1921
The defendant specifically denies each of the several allegations of negligence, and avers that plaintiff himself was guilty of negligence barring his recovery of damages. The trial court submitted the case to the jury on each of the issues presented by the pleadings, and a verdict was returned for the plaintiff in the sum of $10,000. From the judgment entered on such verdict this appeal has been taken.
I. The first and most earnestly argued proposition in support of the appeal is that the plaintiff should be held chargeable with contributory negligence as a matter of law. The argument, stated briefly, follows along this line: First, that, although plaintiff was an invited passenger or guest in a car of which he had neither ownership nor control, yet he was still bound to exercise reasonable care for his own safety; and second, that reasonable care required him, as a matter of law, to observe the crossing to discover if a car was approaching on defendant’s track, and if there was one, it was further his duty, as a matter of law, to give the alarm to the driver, and cause him, if possible, to stop until the danger had passed; and that, failing so to do, he cannot recover.
With the first proposition, that the invited guest or passenger is not absolved from his obligation to use reasonable care for his own safety, there is no room for dispute; but this is as far as the court can keep step with counsel. The leap from the statement of duty of reasonable care for one’s own safety to the conclusion, as a matter of law, that the invited guest is negligent if.he fails to see an impending danger in time to interfere and prevent it, is entirely too far. The question as to what is reasonable care in such an emergency is peculiarly a question
He also testified that, during the time he had been so disabled, the schedule of compensation for railway conductors of his class had “gone up.” No good reason appears for excluding such testimony. The chances of an employee for promotion in the service in which he is engaged, together with proof of the wages he was then receiving, and of his prospects for advancement, had he not been, injured, are universally recognized as proper subjects of inquiry in determining what loss, if any, he had sustained by reason of his disabled condition.
Y. The general claim is made that there is no evidence on which the defendant can be properly-found to have been negli
There is no reversible error in the record, and the judgment of the district court is — Affirmed.