237 Pa. 524 | Pa. | 1912
Opinion by
The plaintiff here sought to recover damages for the death of her husband which resulted as she alleged, from the negligence of the defendant company. The accident occurred at a grade crossing known as the Mertz crossing, in the open country, at six o’clock upon a clear evening in December. The situation of the crossing afforded an unobstructed view of the track in the direction from which the train was approaching, for a distance of about one mile. The plaintiff’s husband, Earnest Weíkel, and a companion, were riding in a one-horse wagon upon a public highway which ran almost parallel with, and near the railroad tracks for a considerable distance before the crossing was reached. Weikel and his companion Keiffer were well acquainted with the neighborhood and with the running of the trains. They were driving southward, and came upon
The case of Howard v. B. & O. R. R. Co., 219 Pa. 358, is cited as authority for the proposition that this case should have been submitted to the jury. The point of that decision lay in the fact that the view along the track in the direction from which the train came, was limited to a distance of about six hundred feet. So that, having looked as far as possible, and seeing no train approaching, and then starting over, one might have been caught without fault of his own. In the Howard case, the limited distance for which the track could be seen, might readily have rendered useless the precaution of looking. Hence, in that case, we held that the court could not say as a matter of law that the fact of the collision made the inference of contributory negligence unavoidable. But in the present case, the long stretch of track, without any obstruction to the view, over which an approaching train must pass, made it idle to say that the train which struck the men while crossing the track was not in plain sight, when they started to cross. The conclusion that the men drove negligently into obvious danger, seems to us, as it did to the court below, to be the only reasonable inference which could have been drawn from the testimony.
The assignments of error are overruled, and the judgment is affirmed.