Sipes v. Puget Sound Electric Railway

Citations

• 54 Wash. 47
• 102 P. 1057
• 1909 Wash. LEXIS 942

Syllabus

<p>Appeal — Review—Harmless Error. Evidence as to defendant’s grades, cuts, and curves, not pleaded as negligence, is not prejudicial where it was introduced as descriptive of the place and to disprove contributory negligence, and the jury was instructed at the time that negligence of the defendant could not be predicated thereon.</p> <p>Master and Servant — Negligence—Railroads—Flagging System —Evidence of Custom. Evidence of the system of flagging trains in use on other roads of like character is competent upon an issue as to defendant’s negligence in employing an unsafe system which resulted in a collision.</p> <p>Same. Upon an issue as to the safety of a train dispatching system, evidence tending to show what would have been a safe and proper order for the running of a train is admissible for the purpose of comparison.</p> <p>Appeal — Decision—Law of Case. An instruction not excepted to, that a brakeman on an interurban electric railway, sent ahead by a conductor to flag another train, is a fellow servant of the conductor, becomes the law of the case.</p> <p>Master and Servant — Negligence—Railroads—Promulgation of Train Rules. The sufficiency and reasonableness of rules and regulations promulgated for the running of trains is a mixed question of law and fact where there were other and safer methods.</p> <p>Same — Collision of Trains — Concurrent Negligence — Proximate Cause. Where a collision was caused by the negligence of a flagman, sent ahead under verbal orders to flag trains at a certain station, where there were two other methods of flagging that would appear to be safer, and the company had tacitly admitted that the prevailing method was unsafe; the negligence of the company in failing to promulgate proper rules concurs with the negligence of the flagman as the proximate cause of the accident; as the facts constitute a continuous succession of events that should have been anticipated.</p> <p>Same — Contributory Negligence — Failure to Observe Rules. Cont