United States Supreme Court Cases & Opinions

U.S. Supreme Court

Rocco v. Lehigh Valley R. Co., 288 U.S. 275 (1933)

Rocco v. Lehigh Valley Railroad Co.

No. 359

Argued January 18, 1933

Decided February 6, 1933

288 U.S. 275

Syllabus

1. When, because of washouts, the presence of employees on the tracks may be anticipated, the railroad company should exercise reasonable care to have trains under control and to sound warnings and to keep lookout at places such as blind curves where the view is obstructed, and, in such situations, the rule that the employee on the track assumes the risk does not apply. Chesapeake & Ohio Ry. Co. v. Nixon, 271 U. S. 218, distinguished. P. 288 U. S. 277.

2. A track inspector, riding a railway tricycle, set out on an inspection trip, as required by his duty, and was run down on a blind curve by a delayed train, which he must have known was somewhere on the line before him. In an action under the Federal Employers' Liability Act, held that his failure to obey a rule requiring him, before leaving to ascertain from the railway office the whereabouts of trains was not to be taken as the primary and efficient cause of the accident, precluding recovery, but was to be considered by the jury with the other evidence in determining the question of his negligence. Davis v. Kennedy, 266 U. S. 147; Unadilla Valley Ry. Co. v. Caldine, 278 U. S. 139, distinguished. P. 288 U. S. 279.

3. The Employers' Liability Act imposes liability on the carrier if the injury or death results "in whole or in part" from its negligence. In this case, the questions of negligence and contributory negligence were for the jury. P. 288 U. S. 278.

259 N.Y. 51, 181 N.E. 11, reversed.

Certiorari, 287 U. S. 58, to review the reversal of a judgment, 231 App.Div, 323, recovered by the executrix

Page 288 U. S. 276

of a deceased railway employee in an action under the Federal Employers' Liability Act for death by negligence. The judgment under review was entered in the trial court pursuant to a remittitur.