Diehl v. Lehigh Valley Railroad

Citations

• 254 Pa. 404
• 98 A. 1061
• 1916 Pa. LEXIS 743

Syllabus

<p>Negligence — Railroads—Private yard — Conductor '— Switching cars — Weighing cars — Train on wrong trade — Collision—Contributory negligence — Case for jury.</p> <p>In an action against a railroad company to recover damages for the death of plaintiff’s husband, a freight conductor in the employ of a steel company, it appeared that at the time of the accident the deceased was engaged in the yard of his employer in weighing loaded cars, in his employer’s yard. He detached a large car, placed it on the scales, entered the narrow space between the scales and the next car to see that the wheels of the car were entirely on the platform; defendant’s train, ran onto the scales track in violation of the rules governing the use of such track, although the view was ■ unobstructed and defendant’s brakeman must have seen the car on the scale track and collided with deceased’s train, causing it to strike the car on the scales, deceased was crushed between the cars. Defendant’s brakeman, whose duty it was to operate the switch, testified that he saw the position of the steel company’s cars and assumed that the brakeman on defendant’s train could see the danger and did not signal him, while the latter testified that he did not know that the switch was set for another track until too late to avert the collision. There was evidence that deceased might have avoided stepping between the bars by passing around the scales to the opposite side of the track, but it appeared that the method he adopted was not unusual nor obviously dangerous, and while the car on the scales was detached from the train the engineer was not expected to remove the remaining ones without signal to do so. Held, the question of defendant’s negligence and deceased’s contributory negligence were for the jury and a verdict and judgment for the plaintiff were sustained.</p>