Rick v. New York, Chicago & St. Louis Railroad

Citations

• 232 Pa. 553
• 81 A. 650
• 1911 Pa. LEXIS 762

Syllabus

<p>Negligence — Railroads—Defective car — Inspection—Evidence—Ownership of car — Duty to repair.</p> <p>1. In an action for damages for personal injuries the court properly refused to instruct the jury that there was no evidence that an inspection of a railroad car was made by an incompetent inspector or that the defendant, a' railroad company, was not negligent in the inspection of the car or in its employment of an incompetent inspector, where the evidence showed that the defendant issued a bill of lading for certain bar iron loaded on the car on the tracks of another railroad at the place of shipment and collected the freight for transporting the iron to its destination eighty-two miles distant, of which the intermediate eighty miles was over defendant’s road; that it received the ear at a junction point where it was inspected and returned for a defect in the draught bolts; that a few days thereafter it was again delivered, inspected and accepted, and hauled over the defendant’s lines to another junction; that here it was again jointly inspected by the defendant and a third company and afterwards hauled by the latter to its final destination; that on the day following its delivery to the consignee, the plaintiff, an employee of the consignee, while assisting to unload the car was hurt by slipping on an insufficient covering of a hole chopped in the floor of the car, which was covered with iron except the space around the hole; a witness for the defendant having testified that nothing was done to the car while in possession of the third company, and there being nothing in the evidence to warrant the conclusion that there was any change made in the position of the iron in the car from the time it was loaded until it was unloaded.</p> <p>2. In such a case, where the defendant acknowledges the receipt of the iron to be carried on “car 2365,” and was required by its contract to take the consignment, it must be assumed, in the absence of evidence to the contrary, that