Thompson v. Seaboard Air Line Ry.

Citations

• 81 S.C. 329

Syllabus

<p>1. Railroads — Negligence.—No evidence in this case from which negligence could be reasonably inferred in engineer’s failing to stop his train before it struck a man on the track signalling him.</p> <p>2. Ibid. — -Ibid.—Issues—Bkidge—Proximate Cause. — That a railroad company builds a bridge on a highway crossing the railroad on its right of way for its own convenience, and builds and maintains it too short by reason of which a team is held fast on the track because the wheel of the wagon missed the end of the bridge, and that the driver is killed on the track by the engine a short distance from the crossing where he had gone to signal the train, is sufficient to sustain the finding by the jury that the negligence of the company in building and maintaining a defective bridge was the proximate cause of the death of the driver.</p> <p>3. Contributory Negligence. — It is not contributory negligence for one charged with the protection of property to take a manifest risk to save it unless the risk was wanton or unreasonable. The test is whether a reasonably prudent man in the same emergency would have assumed the peril.</p> <p>4. Railroads — Signals—Issues.—Whether the failure to give the crossing signal by an engineer contributed to the death of the driver of a team, killed by the engine one hundred feet from a crossing, where he had gone to signal the train to stop in order to prevent it from striking his team, held on the crossing by a defective bridge, is for the jury.</p> <p>5. Ibid. — Crossings—Bridges.—Issue of punitive damages properly sent to jury here because the railroad company was frequently notified by the county authorities of the dangerous condition of the bridge and requested to repair it.</p> <p>6. Ibid. — Trespasser.—One going on the track of a railroad to signal a train to stop to avert danger of loss of property or life is not a trespasser.</p>