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Nicholson v. The Hannibal & St. Joseph Railroad Company, Appellant

Supreme Court of Missouri1884-04
82 Mo. 73

Summary

Holding. The judgment of the circuit court is affirmed. The trial court properly refused the railroad's directed-verdict instruction, and the complaint was sufficiently specific under established precedent to support the damages award.

A railroad company appealed a judgment awarding a plaintiff damages for a pig killed by a train. The plaintiff alleged that the railroad owned and operated a line through Clay County, Missouri, and that the plaintiff's brood sow, worth $20, strayed onto the railroad track at a location where the railroad's fence was down and in disrepair, contrary to statutory requirements. The train struck and killed the sow, and the plaintiff sought double damages ($40) plus costs. At trial, the plaintiff presented witness testimony establishing the sow's ownership and value, the date and location of the killing, and the deficient condition of the railroad's fence at that specific point.

The railroad company appealed on the ground that the initial complaint was legally insufficient because it failed to allege that the land through which the railroad ran was required by statute to be fenced, and that the sow's death resulted from this lack of fencing. The court rejected this argument, holding that after a verdict has been rendered in the plaintiff's favor, the complaint's allegation that the track was not enclosed "as the law directs" constitutes an adequate assertion that the railroad ran through property of the type the statute required to be fenced. The court relied on prior precedent establishing this standard and distinguished an earlier case the railroad cited.

Summary generated by law.co from the public-domain opinion. The opinion text itself is public domain.

Key issues

  • Sufficiency of pleading requirements in railroad-negligence complaints after verdict
  • Statutory fence requirements for railroads on enclosed pastureland
  • Interpretation of allegations regarding statutory compliance

Procedural posture

The case began before a justice of the peace, proceeded to the circuit court on appeal where the plaintiff obtained judgment, and the railroad company appealed to this court.

Authorities cited

No cited authorities resolved to law.co cases yet.

Opinion

majority opinion

Philips, C.

This action was begun before a justice of the peace in Clay county, based on the following statement:

Plaintiff states that the Hannibal & St. Joseph Railroad Company is a corporation, made so by the laws of the State of Missouri, and is, therefore, liable to sue and be sued in the courts of said State of Missouri. Plaintiff further says that defendant owns and operates a railroad running through Kearney township, Olay county, Mo. Plaintiff also, says, that he was the owner of a brood sow of the value of $20, and that said brood sow strayed upon the railroad track of defendant at a point in Kearney township, Clay county, Missouri, where said railroad track was not inclosed by a good and sufficient fence, as the law directs; said brood sow of the above value was run over and killed by the locomotive and cars, on or about the 28th day of May, 1881, the said locomotive and cars being operated by the employes of defendants.

Plaintiff’ therefore asks a judgment for damages for double the amount of the value of said brood sow, said amount being $40 and his cost.

Plaintiff recovered judgment in the justice’s .court, from which the defendant appealed to the circuit court. On trial in the circuit court the evidence was as follows:

James Thompson being introduced on the part of the plaintiff testified as follows:

I knew the brood sow sued for in this cause. She was the property of the plaintiff and was reasonably worth the sum of $20. She was killed by defendant’s train on the 28th day of May, 1881, at a point on its track in Kearney township, in Clay county, Missouri. At the point where she was killed and where she got upon defendant’s track, the fence was down, and had been for some time. She was killed not on the crossing of a public or other highway, but where the road passed through enclosed pastures. The railroad had been fenced, but at the time of the killing and a long time before the fence at this point had been down, and the hog got on the track of defendant where said fence was down. I saw the hog killed as above stated.

Two other witnesses, introduced by plaintiff, testified to the same effect. This was all the evidence introduced by the plaintiff.

At the conclusion of the evidence the defendant asked the following instruction : “ Under the statement and evidence the plaintiff is not entitled to recover.” Which instruction the court refused, and found the issues for plaintiff and rendered judgment accordingly for double the value of the sow. Erom this judgment the defendant prosecutes this appeal.

The error relied upon by appellant for reversal of this judgment is the insufficiency of the statement. It is urged against this statement, that it does not allege that the land, through which the road ran, and where the injury occurred, was of the character required by the statute to be fenced; nor that the animal was killed in consequence of the want of such fence. Under the recent decisions of this court this statement is sufficient after verdict. Belcher v. Railroad Co., 75 Mo. 515; Jackson v. Railroad Co., 80 Mo. 147, and authorities therein reviewed. The case of Hudgens v. Railroad Co., 79 Mo. 418, relied on by appellant, does not sustain the objection made to this petition. It did not directly or inferentially appear from tlie statement in that case that the point at which the animal injured entered upon the railroad track was not fenced. Whereas the statement in ■question distinctly avers that the “brood sow strayed upon the railroad track of defendant at a point in Kearney township, Clay county, Missouri, where said railroad track was not inclosed by a good and sufficient fence, as the law directs.” The averment that the land was not there fenced “ as the law directs,” is after verdict to be regarded as equivalent to the averment that the road at the given point ran through the character of land which the statute required to be fenced. Jackson v. Railroad Co., supra.

Einding no error in the record, the judgment or the circuit court is affirmed.

All concur, except Norton and Sherwood, JJ., absent.