780 



RAILROAD ACCIDENTS, LAW OF. 



$189,426,035; and the amount of dividends 

 was $77,672,105. 



A vast amount of railroad property, goods 

 in transit, and many lives, are lost every year 

 by accidents on railroads ; but it is almost im- 

 possible to obtain full and true data of the 

 loss thus occasioned ; for railroad companies 

 are by no means willing to publish such evi- 

 dences of bad management or carelessness. The 

 authority of the United States Government, 

 however, succeeded in eliciting from these 

 corporations certain information which was 

 compiled for the census. From this source it 

 appears that in 1880 there were 8,215 acci- 

 dents, of which 31 per cent, caused death ; 678 

 accidents happened to passengers, of which 

 21 per cent, caused death ; 4,540 accidents 

 happened to employe's, 20 per cent, causing 

 death ; 2,923 accidents happened to persons 

 other than passengers or employe's, 50 per cent, 

 causing death. The rate of accidents to em- 

 ploye's is about 1 employe 1 out of every 70 each 

 year. There were paid out during 1880 by 

 railroad companies $1,377,978 as compensation 

 for injuries. 



Railroads are of comparatively recent origin, 

 and, consequently, when they were first estab- 

 lished, there was no specific law upon their 

 special duties and privileges. It became ne- 

 cessary, therefore, to apply to them the rules 

 governing similar interests, such as wagon- 

 ers, stage-coaches, and other transporters of 

 goods and passengers, known in law as com- 

 mon carriers, with such modifications as the 

 new features of railroading necessitated. These 

 modifications depended largely upon the idio- 

 syncrasies of different judges, many of whom 

 were popularly supposed to be partial to rail- 

 way corporations. As a consequence, the law 

 of railroads, as to-day laid down in books and 

 stated by courts, is a jumble of legal joiner- 

 work, made up of fragments of pre-existing 

 law and the notions of individual judges x , and 

 by no means underlaid by principles of justice. 



To render a railroad corporation liable for an 

 injury to an individual, two things are necessa- 

 ry : that the company shall be guilty of some 

 negligence, which mediately or immediately 

 produced or enhanced the injury; and that the 

 passenger shall not have been guilty of any 

 want of ordinary care and prudence, which di- 

 rectly contributed to the injury since no one 

 can recover for an injury of which his own 

 negligence was in whole or in part the proxi- 

 mate cause. But the person is only required 

 to exercise such care as prudent persons under 

 like circumstances would be expected to use; 

 and a young child, an idiot or feeble-minded 

 person, a sick or very timid person, would not 

 be expected to exert the same care as oth- 

 ers of more strength, or courage, or capacity. 

 Three legal rules concerning negligence as ap- 

 plicable to railroad accidents may be laid down 

 as of primary importance, viz. : 



1. Actionable negligence involves the breach 

 of a legal duty. 



2. Negligence is actionable only when it 

 causes injury. 



3. Negligence is not itself a fact, but an in- 

 ference from facts. 



The following are illustrations of acts or 

 omissions that, unless excused ox* qualified by 

 special circumstances, have been held by courts 

 to be negligence preventing an injured person 

 from recovering damages, viz.: Failure to use 

 his sense of sight by looking up and down the 

 track, before crossing it; sitting, walking, or 

 being upon the track without right; inatten- 

 tion to his dangerous position when on the 

 track, whether there lawfully or not ; passing 

 under, over, or between the platforms of cars 

 in motion, or likely to move at once, although 

 they may be improperly blocking the highway ; 

 stopping before or behind cars that are sta- 

 tionary on the track ; opening gates (to cross a 

 highway, or for other purposes) that are under 

 the railroad company's control, although no 

 gate-keeper is in attendance. And the follow- 

 ing are illustrations of similar acts peculiar to 

 the case of a passenger: resting the elbow so 

 that it projects beyond the window-sill ; put- 

 ting the head out of the window ; entering or 

 leaving a train while it is in motion ; standing 

 on the platform of a moving car; leaving the 

 train by an improper place, other than the 

 platform ; going upon a track without reason 

 after leaving the train; riding on the engine, 

 or in the baggage-car, or on the platform. The 

 direction, invitation, or assurance of safety, 

 given by an employ 6 of the railroad compa- 

 ny, may so qualify a person's act as to relieve 

 it of the quality of negligence that it would 

 otherwise have. This is particularly true in 

 the case of passengers, for they are particularly 

 in the charge of the company, and have a right 

 to assume that the company's servants know 

 what is safe. The same rule has been held 

 also in the case of persons who were not pas- 

 sengers, but who acted under direction of the 

 corporation's servants in passing over the track 

 at highway crossings. But even to this rule 

 there is an exception, viz., that notwithstand- 

 ing such direction, invitation, or assurance, 

 the plaintiff will not be excused in following 

 it if the act involves a reckless exposure of 

 himself, or is one that a man of common pru- 

 dence would not do. 



The knowledge and experience of jurors, 

 their acquaintance with the affairs of life, with 

 the way in which men usually act and think, 

 are specially called into request in determining 

 this question of negligence ; for the question 

 of contributory negligence being determinable 

 only from the facts, it is for the jury, rather 

 than for the court, to pass upon its existence. 

 Theoretically this is a wholesome check upon 

 the most soulless of all corporations, but prac- 

 tically it is of little importance, for the court 

 has the right to order a nonsuit, without sub- 

 mitting the question to the jury, if, in the opin- 

 ion of the judge, the inference that the person 

 is not guilty of contributory negligence, or the 



