New Orleans & N. E. R. v. Martin

Citations

• 126 Miss. 765
• 89 So. 621

Syllabus

<p>1. Railroads. Reasonable care required to avoid injuring animals discovered.</p> <p>A railroad company in operating its trains is only required to exercise reasonable care to avoid injury to animals on or near its tracks after discovering their position of peril; it is not required to do everything possible to avoid the injury; the standard of action of the average man under the circumstances is the criterion which governs; in the operation of its trains it does not have to check the speed of its trains until there is a reasonable apprehension that animals near the track will go thereon and receive injury. And applying these principles in a case where the evidence shows without conflict that the injury complained of could nqt have been avoided by the exercise of reasonable care, it is the duty of the court to instruct the jury to return a verdict for the railroad company.</p> <p>2. Railroads. Speed statute inapplicable beyond municipal limits.</p> <p>The speed statute, Code 1906, section 4043, Hemingway’s Code, section 6667, prescribes the speed limit of trains “within” cities, towns, and villages, not without; and its object is to prevent injuries to persons and property situated “within” the limits of municipalities, not persons and property situated without such limits; and the statute has no application where the injury was inflicted outside of the municipal limits although the train just before inflicting the injury had been running within such limits at a greater rate of speed than the statutory rate.</p>