Madden v. Lehigh Valley Railroad

Citations

• 236 Pa. 104
• 84 A. 672
• 1912 Pa. LEXIS 720

Syllabus

<p>Negligence — Railroads — Braheman—Death—Evidence.</p> <p>1. In cases to recover damages for death, although there must of course be affirmative proof of negligence before recovery can be had, it is not always essential that there be an eye witness of the occurrence. The proof may be furnished by the circumstances themselves; the test is whether they are such as to satisfy reasonable and well balanced minds that the accident resulted from the negligence of the defendant.</p> <p>2. In an accident case, before the maxim, volenti non fit injuria, can be invoked, it must be shown that the person injured or killed not only knew, or had full opportunity to know the circumstances, but that he appreciated, or should have appreciated the extent of the danger, and that he voluntarily exposed himself to it.</p> <p>3. In an action against a railroad company to recover damages for the death of one of its brakemen, a verdict and judgment against the company will be sustained where the evidence showed that at the time of the accident, the defendant was standing on the steps of the tender of a freight engine which was backing into a switch to couple a car, that the deceased with his right hand had hold of the grab bar to keep himself in place, while in his left hand he had a lantern with which he was giving signals to the engineer, that suddenly the lantern flickered up and the decedent went down out of sight of the engineer; that at the point where the deceased fell there was a pile of ashes of a depth of two feet covering the ends of the sleepers; and that the situation of the decedent’s body in relation to the pile of ashes justified an inference that the ashes came in contact with his feet and pushed or dragged them from under him, causing him to fall.</p> <p>4. Where there is any doubt that an employee was acquainted with the risk, the determination of the question is necessarily with the jury.</p>