91 Ala. 432 | Ala. | 1890
In Louisville & Nashville R. R. Co. v. Jones, 83 Ala. 376, a case of alleged personal injury to a passenger, we said: “If injury is suffered at the hands of a common carrier, the law, in the absence of all explanation, presumes it was the result of the carrier’s fault, and casts on the latter the burden of overturning the presumption, or of showing that diligence and a careful observance of duty could not have prevented the injury.” In that case, the coach in which plaintiff’s intestate was being carried, was derailed, and thrown from the track, the derailment being caused, either by one of the wheels becoming loose on the axle, or by the sinking of a cross-tie, and consequent depression of the track at that point. If the derailment was caused in either of these ways, it resulted from imperfection or derangement of the machinery or plant; and in such cases, the rule of prima facie negligence applies.—Hutchinson on Carriers, §§ 800-1; Railway Accident Law, § 375. The case of S. & N. R. R. Co. v. Bees, 82 Ala. 340, was for an injury to stock, and the same rule of presumed negligence applies in cases of that class.
The extract copied above from L. & N. R. R. Co. v. Jones, although correct in that case, and in many others, is not of universal application. See Hutchinson on Carriers, §§ 799-801; Railway Accident Law, § 376. The principle is, perhaps, stated too broadly.
Railroad Co. v. Pollard, 22 Wall. (U. S.) 341, was very like the present one in its facts. In that case, the trial court had charged the jury: “That while the plaintiff was bound to satisfy the jury that the injury was caused by the negligence of defendant, if, from the evidence, the jury were satisfied that the injury was occasioned while Mrs. Pollard was a passenger on defendant’s road, and that she was in the exercise of ordi
It may be that the charge given liad a tendency to mislead the jury; and it may be that some explanation, if asked, should have been given. We'can not know it was not given. The charge excepted to expresses a correct general proposition, and we can not assume that it misled the jury. The City Court ■did not err in the charge given and excepted to.
There is nothing in the other questions.
Affirmed.