Toledo, Peoria & Warsaw Railway Co. v. Bray

Citations

• 57 Ill. 514

Syllabus

<p>1. Negligence in railroads—killing stock. Where stock is killed on a railroad track, and the engineer in charge at the time, could, by the use of ordinary care and skill, without danger, have stopped the train in time to avoid the collision, although the animals were wrongfully upon the track, the company is nevertheless liable.</p> <p>2. Same—who may determine what facts constitute negligence. In an action against a railroad company to recover for the killing of plaintiff’s cows by the defendant’s train, an instruction which directed the jury on behalf of the plaintiff “ that if they believed, from the evidence, that the engine driver by the use of ordinary skill and prudence could have seen the cows spoken about by the witnesses, or that he did see the cows, and that he might without danger, by the use of ordinary care, have stopped the train before striking the cows and did not, that this would he negligence on the part of the defendants,” upon objection that the court by the instruction encroached on the province of the jury in telling them that a certain state of facts constituted negligence, was regarded as not open to such objection.</p>