Chapman v. Pittsburg Rys. Co.

Citations

• 140 F. 784
• 1905 U.S. App. LEXIS 4834

Syllabus

<p>¡Release — Damages eos Personal Injury — Eefect on Action Against De-EENDANT SEPARATELY LIABLE.</p> <p>Plaintiff, while employed as a brakeman and riding upon the top of a train of freight cars, was thrown off and injured by striking against a trolley wire across the track, placed by defendant, a street railroad company, at an unsafe distance above the railroad tracks. Plaintiff was a member of the railroad company’s relief department, and on receiving benefits from such fund on account of his injury signed a release to the company of liability therefor, as required by the terms of his contract Held, that such release did not operate to discharge the defendant from liability, since it was not a joint tort-feasor with the railroad company, but its acts of negligence, if any, which rendered it liable to plaintiff, -were separate and distinct</p>