New Orleans, Mobile & Chicago R. R. v. Cole

Citations

• 101 Miss. 173
• 57 So. 556

Syllabus

<p>1. Railboads. Negligence. Injuries to persons on track. Burden of proof. Code of 1906, section 1985. Constitution United States^ Fourteenth Amendment. Review. •</p> <p>Negligence is the failure to observe, for the protection of the-interest of another person, that degree of care, precaution, and! vigilance which the circumstances justly demand, whereby suchi other person suffers injury.</p> <p>2. Code of 1906, Section 1985. Injuries to persons. Burden of proof.</p> <p>Under Code of 1906, section 1985, so providing in all actions against railroad companies for injury to persons or property, proof of injury inflicted by the running of locomotives or cars shall be prima facie evidence of a lack of reasonable skill on the part of the servants of the company, proof of an injury raises a presumption of negligence, casting the burden of proof on the railroad company. In such case proof that the equipment of a train was proper and that the servants of the company kept a-vigilant lookout, is in the absence of any evidence as to the situation of the person injured, not sufficient.</p> <p>3. Code of 1906, Section 1985. Constitution of United States, Fourteenth Amendment.</p> <p>Section 1985 of the Code of 1906 is not in conflict with the fourteenth amendment to the federal constitution, in that it does not deprive a railroad company of the equal protection of the laws and of its property without due process of law.</p> <p>4. Appeal and Error. Instructions. Harmless error.</p> <p>■Where a party to a suit obtains a judgment he cannot complain that the court refused to give him a peremptory instruction, for the jury have done what the party requested the court to peremptorily charge them to do.</p> <p>5. Appeal and Error. Review. Harmless error.</p> <p>A party cannot complain of an erroneous instruction where instructions were given at his request embodying the same prin- . ciple.</p>