TAYLOR v. DAVIS

ST. LOUIS & S. F. R. CO. v. LITTLE
1912 OK 504
125 P. 459
34 Okla. 298
Case Number: 1982
Decided: 07/18/1912
Supreme Court of Oklahoma

ST. LOUIS & S. F. R. CO.
v.
LITTLE.

Syllabus

¶0 RAlLROADS--Operation--Injuries to Animals. Where the law prohibits domestic animals from running at large, and a mare, being at large, strays upon the tracks of a railroad company at a place it is not required to fence its tracks, and is killed by the train, it is error to instruct the jury that the employees of the company are required, at such place, to keep "a constant and careful lookout for stock which might be on the track. " The duty of the company, under such circumstances, is to exercise ordinary care not to injure such animal after its presence on the track and its danger have been discovered.

W. F. Evans, R. A. Kleinschmidt, and Fred E. Suits, for plaintiff in error.
Summers Hardy, Wm. M. Franklin, F. E. Kennamer, and Chas. A. Coakley, for defendant in error.

BREWER C.

¶1 In this case the plaintiff below sued the defendant for killing a mare on the 28th day of October, 1908, in the town of Kingston, Marshall county, Okla. The jury returned a verdict for plaintiff, and judgment was entered thereon, and this appeal is prosecuted to correct alleged errors occurring at the trial. Marshall county is situated in what was formerly the Indian Territory, wherein, prior to the erection of the state of Oklahoma, there was no law restraining domestic animals from running at large. However, upon coming into statehood, the herd law in force in Oklahoma Territory theretofore was extended in force in the state by the Schedule to the Constitution and the Enabling Act. Leflore v. Saunders, 24 Okla. 301, 103 P. 858. The record in this case fails to disclose whether this law had been suspended at the place and time of the killing of the mare. If such was the case, it was the duty of the plaintiff below to show the same. St. L. & S. F. R. Co. v. Brown, 32 Okla. 483, 122 P. 136; M., K. & T. Ry. Co. v. Savage, 32 Okla. 376, 122 P. 656. The court below gave, over the objection of the defendant, the following instruction:

"That although the mare was wrongfully on the defendant's track when it received the injury of which it died and was not seen by the engineer in time to avert the. accident, yet if, by the exercise of ordinary care and watchfulness, he might have seen her in time to have averted the danger, the defendant was liable for the injury that resulted from the accident. It was certainly the duty of the engineer in passing through the limits of the town of Kingston to keep a constant and careful lookout for stock which might be on the track." The state of this record considered, the giving of this instruction was reversible error; and it has been so held in A., T. & S. F. Ry. Co. v. Davis & Young, 26 Okla. 359, 109 P. 551; A., T. & S. F. Ry. Co. v. Ward, 32 Okla. 187, 120 P. 982; St. L. & S. F. R. Co. v. Brown, supra; M., K. & T. Ry. Co. v. Savage, supra. It is not necessary to discuss those cases, as a reference to them will show that this case is covered by the doctrine they announce. However, as there is evidence in this case sufficient to justify it, the case should be reversed and remanded, and a new trial granted.

¶2 By the Court: It is so ordered.