Calhoun v. Pennsylvania Railroad

Citations

• 223 Pa. 298
• 72 A. 556
• 1909 Pa. LEXIS 527

Syllabus

<p>Negligence — Railroads—Grade crossings — “Stop, look and listen”— Proper place to stop — Case for jury.</p> <p>1. If a driver of a wagon on approaching a railroad grade crossing cannot see from the vehicle in which he is riding, he should get out and go forward to a place where he can sec; but where a driver has stopped at the usual place for stopping from which he has a view of the tracks, whether he should go forward in advance of his team to a better place to look, is a question to be determined by the jury from the circumstances of the particular case.</p> <p>2. In an action against a railroad company to recover damages for personal injuries, it appeared that the plaintiff was injured at a grade crossing where there were five tracks, on four of which rapidly moving trains ran frequently. He was riding on a long lumber wagon and was seated twenty feet back of his horses’ heads near the hind axle, a position from which he could reach the brake. He stopped when his horses were twenty feet from the tracks and he was about forty feet from them, and waited until a train had passed west 300 feet. This was the usual place where drivers stopped, but from it he could see only about 300 feet either way. Within twenty feet of the tracks there was an unobstructed view for 1,400 feet. After the train had passed, the plaintiff looked and listened as he drove on the crossing. When his horses were on the second track and the front of his wagon on the first he saw a train coming east around a curve 1,500 feet away. He hastened to get across, but one of the hind wheels of his wagon was struck when on the last rail of the fourth track by a train which, according to the testimony of his witness, was running fifty-five miles an hour, of the approach of which no warning had been given. Held, that the case was for the jury and that a verdict and judgment for plaintiff should be sustained.</p>