98 Ga. 306 | Ga. | 1896
Lead Opinion
The decision of this court in Henderson v. Walker et al., receivers, 55 Ga. 481, which has recently been reviewed and affirmed, is based upon the principle that special statutes which relate expressly and exclusively to railroad companies cannot be held applicable to receivers of a railroad operating it under the orders of a court, for the reason that such receivers are not themselves railroad companies. The statutes referred to include not only those passed for the purpose of creating, as against a railroad company, a liability to which it would not be subject under the rules of the common law, but also those designed to vary pre-existing rules of evidence, so as to enable plaintiffs, in certain classes of cases, the more readily to establish a prima facie case of liability against such companies. At common law, a master was not liable to one agent because of injuries arising from the negligence or misconduct of other agents in and about the same business. This general rule is still of force in this State. Code, §2202. . But an exception has been made by statute in the case of employees of railroad companies. Code, §§2083, 3033, 3036. The Henderson case decides that these sections cannot be invoked in favor of the employee of a receiver in charge of the property of a railroad company. Again, at common law, there was not, in the trial of an action by a servant against his master for
The question in the present case is, does this modification of the general rule of evidence prevail in favor of an employee of railroad receivers. We think not, and the application of the doctrine of the Henderson case seems to render this conclusion unanswerable.
There was no evidence in the present case which, in our judgment, showed affirmatively that the defendants were negligent; and as a finding in their favor was. the only one which could have been legally rendered, we need not pass upon the various assignments of error contained in the motion for a new trial. Judgment affirmed.
Concurrence Opinion
concurring.
Without assenting to the correctness of the doctrine laid down in the cases cited in the first head-note, supra, I am, upon the authority of the rulings made in those cases, constrained to- the conclusion reached in this, and for that reason only, concur in the judgment.