76 So. 580 | La. | 1917
The startling noise produced by a sudden escape of steam from the safety valve of a locomotive of the defendant railroad company frightened a pair of mules hitched to a wagon in which were the wife and child of plaintiff, causing the animals to run away and spill the occupants of the wagon, killing the child instantly; and plaintiff sues in damages for the death of the child.
Lumberton, where this accident occurred, was a logging camp which had recently become a place of considerable population as the effect of an excitement incident to the discovery of oil in the neighborhood. And, in like manner, the railroad of defendant was a logging road, which the need of transportation facilities incident to the same discovery of oil had recently converted into a commercial road. It reached to this logging camp out of Mansfield.
When a locomotive on defendant’s railroad in entering Lumberton going due northeast reaches Lumberton avenue, which runs due east and west, the engineer has at his left the ice warehouse of Lawrence & Gardner, which is situated in the angle between the avenue and the railroad, south of the avenue and northwest of the railroad, facing the avenue and partly on it, and extending back on the right of way of the railroad. That day, which was a Sunday, at about 3 in the afternoon, the locomotive, after having left the coaches at the station on the north side of the avenue, and done some switching, had come and
Plaintiff was the person in charge of the ice warehouse, but, the day being Sunday, he was off duty, and had come to Lumberton with his wife and child merely to witness the spectacle of the arrival of the train. However, to accommodate some customers who wanted ice, he went to the warehouse, backed his wagon to the front gallery, left his wife and child in it, and opened, and went into, the warehouse. He was engaged in doing this when the escape of steam and the runaway occurred. How long he had then been away from the team the evidence does not show.
Plaintiff contends that the noise produced by the said sudden escape of steam, the popping of the valve, was of a nature to frighten any horse or mule, however gentle and safe, and that leaving to itself so near the avenue, where- teams were constantly passing, this locomotive which might at any moment break out into this dangerous noise, was negligence on the part of the defendant company.
Defendant contends that before leaving the locomotive the engineer took the proper precaution against this noise occurring, and hence that there was no negligence; but that if there was negligence still plaintiff cannot recover, because he contributed to the accident by leaving his mules unattended, save for his wife in the wagon with a baby in her arms, although he knew the animals were young, spirited, and wild and skittish, and, in fact, habitual runaways.
Plaintiff does not admit that the animals were thus dangerous, and does not admit that the proper precautions were taken to avoid such an escape of steam, and contends that his leaving his team was to be for only a few moments, and the locomotive was then far away, and that he took the precaution of putting a man at the heads of the animals to hold them in case of necessity.
The evidence shows that the mules were young and mettlesome, and had previously run away, once when together and on another occasion separately, and that plaintiff was so aware; but that they were not so wild or easily frightened as defendant makes out, since they were being used evey day, and had that very day, a few moments before this accident, stood unfrightened 15 or 20 feet of this same locomotive when it had traversed this same avenue with the passenger coaches on its way to the station; and that on the occasion when they had run away together it had been from a blowing out of the pipe of a gas well, which had frightened every horse or mule in the vicinity, young and old.
On the question of whether plaintiff put a man at the head of the team there is on one side the positive testimony of plaintiff and of his wife and two other witnesses; and there is on the other side -the testimony of other witnesses that they saw the team standing and no one at their heads. One of the latter witnesses says that there were two men on the ground by the side of the wagon, one opposite the front wheel, and the other back of it. Another of the latter witnesses says that just before the accident he was on horseback at the wagon talking to Mrs. Patton and playing with the baby; that he saw no one standing in front of the mules, but that the engine was then standing still, and that there might have been some one in front of the mules before he rode up.
The testimony may be reconciled by supposing that the person whom plaintiff put at the heads of the mules deemed it no longer necessary to stay there after 'the locomotive had come to a final stop, but only necessary to be near the wagon.
Our learned Brother below, who tried the case without a jury and found against plain
The judgment appealed from is set aside, and it is now ordered, adjudged, and decreed that the plaintiffs It. B. Patton and Mrs. Lotta Patton have judgment against the Frost-.Tohnson Lumber Company in the sum of $3,000, with legal interest thereon from this date, and that defendant pay the costs of this suit.