Northern Central Railway Co. v. State ex rel. Geis

Alvey, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. That a party will act with due care, both with reference to his own safety, and the safety of others, is a natural presumption to be indulged in all cases, until overcome by proof to the contrary. Hence it was not error for the Court below to instruct the jury in this ease, as was done by granting the third prayer of the plaintiff, that in considering the question of negligence, it was competent, in connection with' all the facts and circumstances of the case, to infer the absence of fault on the part of the deceased from the known disposition of men to avoid injury to themselves. Objection is taken to the form of the prayer, and to its being liable to misconstruction by the jury.

But we must construe it with reference to the facts of the case, and it appears that the evidence was conflicting, tending to create doubt as to whether the deceased was in fault in bringing upon hirfiself his misfortune. There may be ³⁶⁵ cases in which such an instruction would be objectionable, as where there is positive, unconflicting proof of the negligence of the party injured. In such cases an instruction of the character and form here given might mislead the jury, and for that reason should not be granted. But such was not the character of this case, and we think the instruction proper.

The plaintiff’s fourth prayer was properly rejected as offered, and it is not perceived with what propriety it was granted with the modification affixed to it by the Court. There was no evidence showing, or tending to show, that the accident was occasioned by the act or from the fact of violating the City Ordinance by the defendant, even if it be conceded that the car in which the deceased was injured, occupied at the time, a forbidden place on the street. The whole subject of this instruction was apart from the real questions involved in the case, and, therefore, calculated to mislead the minds of the jury, and should have been withheld from them. The Court was in error, therefore, in granting this fourth prayer as modified.

As to the other instructions by the Court, we think they were not calculated to evolve and place before the jury the true questions arising in the case. In the first part of these instructions, it was assumed that the question of remote and proximate cause of the injury was involved, and they were framed with a view to instructing the jury upon that rather intricate and difficult question. But, according to our view of the case, no such question was really involved, and the minds of the jury should not have been perplexed with it. In Price’s case, 29 Md., 420 , the rulings in which are supposed to govern this, a different state of facts existed from those appearing in this record, and questions arose and distinctions were taken there that do not apply here.

There, from the nature of the case, the question as to the remote and proximate cause of the death arose. But here, ac ³⁶⁶ cording to the proof of the nature of the accident, if negligence he imputable to both parties in reference to the injury, it