138 Iowa 565 | Iowa | 1908
Joseph Remillard and his wife had come from Jefferson, S. D., to Sioux City, with two loads of wheát, January 10, 1905, and, as the mills had closed for the day, drove their teams to the residence of one Bellows at the corner of Second and Main Streets. Railing to find a stable, one team was blanketed, and shortly after eight o’clock in the evening Remillard started for the business portion of the city about ten blocks distant to procure a pair of blankets for the other team. The defendant’s line of railway running through Riverside Park to the business center of the city crosses Main street near Bellow’s residence, and then extends eastward over Sioux, Market and Bluff streets, in the order named. Between these streets the line passes through the blocks diagonally over a right of way of the company. Parallel with the track, and about twelve feet south of it, is the track of the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railway Company. Bellows saw deceased start towards the defendant’s line, and, as he did not return as expected, went after him at about eleven o’clock, when, upon inquiry, he found his body at the morgue. He had been struck by a car of the defendant company at about eight-thirty o’clock, either when on Market street, as the jury found in answer to a special interrogatory, or at a point about ninety feet east of Market street. The court submitted to the jury whether the defendant was negligent (1) in running its car at an excessive rate of speed; and (2) in not stopping it after deceased’s danger was known or should have been known in time to avoid the injury.
On the other hand, the undertaker and his assistant testified that the scalp was undisturbed, but that there was a cut about three inches long on the back of the head which in their judgment was covered by the cap. To this evidence should be added the testimony of the engineer of the train that no person was walking between the tracks of the two companies east of Market street as testified by the motorman, and the speed of the car, and we have facts sufficient to justify the inference that the collision took place some distance east of where the traces on the ground first appeared. True, something else might have caused these; and yet, in view of their character and of the fact that they began where he would have been likely to have fallen if struck at the crossing, and ended where his body was found, together with the depression with indications that his head had been pressed to the ground at that point and the absence of other explanation, if the motorman’s account were rejected as it might have been, no other reasonable conclusion could well
IV. Numerous exceptions to the rulings of the court during the trial and to the instructions are preserved in the record, but none of them are well taken or are sufficiently doubtful to call for extended discussion.— Affirmed.