223 Pa. 18 | Pa. | 1909
Opinion by
This case grows out of the same occurrence as that which was under consideration in the case of Stremme v. Dyer, ante, p. 7, the opinion in which case has just been filed. There the plaintiff was engineer on the train that was precipitated from the trestle; here the plaintiff was the dumping foreman. It is not necessary to repeat the facts common to both cases. The negligence charged in the statement was the defective construction of the trestle. Not only did the defendant deny
1. The defendant was entitled to have the jury instructed that if the plaintiff’s negligence were shown, either as an original or contributing cause of the accident, there could be no recovery. If the trestle did not fall because of defective construction, but solely because of the negligent manner in which the earth had been dumped against it, the accident was to be referred to plaintiff’s negligence as the original and sole cause; if, on the other hand, the trestle was defective, yet if such negligence as we have referred to on part of plaintiff was shown as concurring, then there would-be contributory negligence, and in either case the result would be the same. Was the jury so instructed? The severe examination and analysis to which the charge has been subjected by the learned counsel for the defendant has discovered a single sentence upon which they rest their contention that the instruction given is not in accordance with the law as we have stated it. The portion of the charge assigned as error is as follows: “If the defendant built a trestle that was sufficiently strong to carry this train and the cars loaded with earth that were put upon it, and sufficiently strong to stand the jar of the dump, and the plaintiff, Mr. Murphy, .... dumped dirt to the one side of it against what an ordinarily prudent man would not have done under the circumstances of that employment, and his knowledge,” etc. It is insisted that this instruction allowed a finding for defendant on account of plaintiff’s negligence, only in case the jury should conclude that defendant stood clear of negligence in the construction of the trestle, eliminating from the case the question of plaintiff’s negligence as a concurrent and contributing cause, and that, too, in the very connection in which the court was dealing with contributory negligence. In what we have quoted from the charge — and it is all that is
2. Assuming defendant’s negligence, did contributory negligence on part of the plaintiff so clearly appear that the court could so declare as matter of law? This is the question raised by the second and third assignments of error, which complain of the court’s refusal to give binding instructions, and afterward to enter judgment non obstante. What the jury would find to have been the proximate, efficient cause of the accident, could not have been known to the court. The evidence on part of the plaintiff would have warranted a finding that the efficient and sole cause was the defective construction of the tres
The judgment is affirmed.