State ex rel. Miller v. Baltimore & Ohio Railroad

Bartol, C. J., delivered the opinion of the Court. This suit was instituted by the appellant to recover damages for causing the death of Douglas Miller, a youth about sixteen years of age, who was killed by being run over by the cars of the appellee. The accident occurred at Keedysville, a station on the Washington County Branch of the appellee’s road, on the 1st day of March 18⁷⁸, at 7 o’clock in the morning. Keedysville is a small village situated on the Boons-borough and Sharpsburg Turnpike, which forms the main .street of the town, and crosses the railroad at right angles near the station.

At that place there is a siding parallel to the main track and connected therewith, at the. distance of about nine feet from it, and extending from a ²²³ point 250 yards above the turnpike to a short distance below it. On the morning of the accident a freight train, with a passenger car attached, reached and stopped at the station at the regular time. The engine was detached and ran forward up to the switch connected witli the siding, then ran down the siding and hooked to four coal cars standing thereon; the two nearest the station and farthest from the engine, had been unloaded, one of the others had been partly unloaded while the fourth was loaded with coal. The engine drew the four cars up the siding-in order to take the two empty cars out upon the main track, where they were detached and sent down the main track towards the place where the train was standing at the platform, and the two loaded cars were sent down the siding where they had been before.

It appears from the testimony that the deceased was seen upon the empty cars on the main track “breaking them;” he was also seen whilst lie was getting down from those cars after they had stopped, and shortly afterwards, his body was found under the rear end of the loaded cars on the siding, mortally injured. It appeared from the indications upon the side track that his body had been dragged underneath the cars about thirty-five feet; and on the platform at the formost end of one of the cars, which was covered with white frost, “there were marks resembling finger prints as if some one had slipped.” Ro witness saw the deceased after lie got off the empty cars, till his body was found under the cars as before stated. There is no testimony in the case showing in what manner he got under the cars. Whether he was attempting to get on them while in motion, or fell while attempting to cross the track, or in what way the accident happened, is not explained by the evidence.

According to the proof, the loaded cars were moving-very slowly, at the rate of one mile an hour. ²²⁴ At the trial below a number of prayers offered by the appellant were rejected, and a verdict was found for the appellee, the jury being instructed by the Court that “under the pleadings and evidence in the cause,