278 Mo. 350 | Mo. | 1919
In a suit for personal injuries brought by plaintiff against defendant, in the Circuit Court of Buchanan County, a trial resulted in a verdict for defendant, from which plaintiff appeals.
On December 25, 1913, plaintiff was a passenger on one of defendant’s solid vestibule trains, en route from New York City to Chicago. When the train reached the látter city, at about the 22nd Street crossing, the plaintiff, it is conceded, there being no eye-witness to the accident, fell through an open vestibule door and was injured. Soon thereafter he was found lying in an unconscious condition near the track by employees of the defendant. He was taken to a hospital in Chicago, and upon an examination by the attendant physician and the surgeon employed by defendant, it was discovered that he had a bruise on the right temporal region of his head. His blood pressure was taken, showing it to be above normal. A subsequent examination a few hours later showed a further increase in blood pressure. He remained unconscious during the night, and his blood pressure the next morning being greater, it was decided that there was such an injury to the brain as to render an operation necessary. In the meantime he had aroused from his stupor and became wildly delirious. An anaesthetic was administered and an .operation performed in which that portion of the skull underneath the bruise over the right temporal region was trephined and a portion of the bone removed. Other steps were taken in their order necessary to leave the wound in a condition to heal. Coming out from under the influence of the anaesthetic he again became violent, and it was necessary to administer opiates and place him under physical restraint to prevent his removing the bandages from the wound and inflicting
The conclusions of experts as to the probable effect of the injury were widely variant, as is not infrequent in this character of testimony; at best they were problematical, or of little probative force. The fact appears, however, more potent than speculation based on assumptions of fact, that since the plaintiff’s recovery he has been pursuing with satisfaction to his employers his former vocation, that of caretaker in the shipment of live poultry. His principal contention is that he suffers from a loss of memory, and that his left knee is partially paralyzed, as a result of the injury. His own testimony, as preserved in the record, does not give color to this contention.
The petition, after the usual, formal 'and necessary allegations in a pleading of this character, the sufficiency of none of which is questioned, avers, in effect, that while plaintiff was a passenger on defendant’s solid vestibuled train, with a knowledge on his part as well as that of the agents and servants of the.defendant, of the presence, use and purpose of the vestibules connecting the cars, and that they should remain closed except to admit of the ingress and egress of passengers at stations, the defendant’s'agents and servants negligently permitted the entrance to the vestibule of the coach on which plaintiff was riding as a passenger, and that of the adjoining coach, to carelessly and negligently remain open while the train was in motion, without the knowledge of plaintiff; and while he was in the exercise of ordinary care in going from one coach to another, that said train gave a quick jerk and plaintiff was thrown through the open vestibule to the ground and permanently injured. The accident and plaintiff’s injury are more particularly pleaded as follows: “That in said fall and by reason thereof caused by the negli
“Wherefore the premises considered, the plaintiff prays judgment against the defendants for the sum of twenty-five thousand dollars and for his costs herein expended. ’ ’
The answer was a general denial.
The facts here are parallel with those in the recent case of Kirn v. Harvey, 208 S. W. 479, in which Ellison, P. J., speaking for the Kansas City Court of Appeals, said: “It was necessary that each of the acts should occur in order to throw her from the car. The lurch of the car on the rough track would have been harmless if the door had been closed; and the open door would have been harmless if the car had not lurched on the rough track. The combined, or concurring, acts of negligence were necessary to make a case.”
The Supreme Court of Alabama, in Western Ry. Co. v. McPherson, 146 Ala. 427, held that where the negligence is alleged-as consisting of several acts, conjunctively averred, all must be proved before plaintiff is entitled to recover. A like ruling has been made by the Supreme Court of Michigan, in Wormsdorf v. Det. Ry. Co., 75 Mich. l. c. 477, where it is held that where the accident and resulting injury are alleged to have been caused by several negligent concurring acts and omissions, each must be proved to warrant a recovery.
From all of which it follows that the judgment should be affirmed, and it is so ordered.