Huggans v. Southern Pacific Co.

DOOLING, J.

The plaintiff, a boy 12 years of age, was struck by a southbound locomotive of defendant Southern Pacific Company at its Redwood City station and suffered severe injuries including the loss of the left leg below the knee and the major portion of the right foot. After a jury trial a verdict for $91,000 was returned in favor of the minor against the Southern Pacific Company and its engineer and both defendants have appealed.

The injured boy was engaged in selling an evening newspaper at the railroad station. He had certain customers in a business block near the station and on the afternoon in question he started to leave the station to deliver papers to these customers. In order to do so it was necessary for him to cross the tracks of the defendant railroad company. Three lines of track run in front of the station. Nearest the station is a “house track” used for switching and spotting freight cars bearing freight for delivery to Redwood City. Next beyond the “house track” is the southbound main line and beyond that the northbound main line of the railroad.

The passenger station as it faces these tracks has an over-all length of approximately 70 feet from its northern to its southern end. Approximately 40 feet southerly of the southern end of the station building there is a wooden crosswalk extending across the two main lines of the railroad. The minor plaintiff testified that he started from a point near the station building walking in a diagonal direction toward this crosswalk intending to pass over it. When he arrived at a

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point which he estimated as 6 to 8 steps north of the crosswalk and when he was some 6 to 8 feet from the westerly rail of the southbound main line he looked over his shoulder to the north and saw the southbound passenger train approaching somewhere north of the Broadway crossing. The northerly side of the Broadway crossing scales on a diagram introduced into evidence more than 400 feet from the crosswalk in question. At that time the plaintiff concluded that he had time to get across the crosswalk in front of this train and he did not look to the north again but proceeded to the crosswalk where he was struck. At the same time a northbound freight train was passing the Redwood City station and just before the southbound locomotive struck him a man in the caboose of this train waved to the plaintiff and the plaintiff waved in return. The plaintiff at no time heard the bell or whistle of the southbound train before he was struck.