Half an hour after sunset (5:10), December 8, 1933, respondent's intestate, a signal maintainer, while riding his gasoline speeder over the rails, was run down and killed 3 miles south of Hampton, Minn., by petitioner's passenger train from Minneapolis, moving down grade 60 miles per hour. Darkness had come; the weather was cloudy; the train late; an hour earlier it had collided with a truck and killed a man.
Relying upon the Federal Employers' Liability Act, 45 U.S.C.A. c. 2, §§ 51-59, and the Boiler Inspection Act as amended by Act June 7, 1924, 45 U.S.C.A. c. 1, §§ 22-34, respondent sued for damages in Dakota county district court. The jury found for her; judgment upon the verdict was affirmed by the Supreme Court.
Several acts of negligence were alleged, but the trial court submitted only one to the jury: Failure to equip the locomotive with a headlight of the illuminating power required by federal law.
Section 23 of the Boiler Inspection Act is in the margin. Under permission of that act, the Interstate Commerce Commission adopted the following rule:
'129. Each locomotive used in road service between sunset and sunrise shall have a headlight which shall afford sufficient illumination to enable a person in the cab of such locomotive who possesses the usual visual capacity required of locomotive enginemen to see in a clear atmosphere, a dark object as large as a man of average size standing erect at a distance of at least 800 feet ahead and in front of such headlight; and such headlight must be maintained in good condition.'
The Supreme Court declared: 'Since there was no motion for new trial, the assignments of error reach only the question whether there is any substantial evidence in support of the judgment. As stated, the sole act of negligence upon which the jury could base a recovery, under the charge of the court was a violation of the quoted rule as to headlight; and, if defendant was negligent in that respect, is there sufficient evidence that the deficient headlight was the proximate cause of Rambo's death? The quantum of proof must measure up to the rule clearly and adequately stated in Baltimore & Ohio R.R. Co. v. Groeger, 266 U.S. 521, 45 S.Ct. 169, 69 L.Ed. 419.' It held the evidence adequate.
In cases like this we must examine the record and determine for ourselves whether as matter of law there is enough to sustain a finding of negligence. Chicago, M. & St. Paul R. Co. v. Coogan, 271 U.S. 472, 474, 46 S.Ct. 564, 70 L.Ed. 1041; Atchison, T. & S.F.R. Co. v. Saxon, 284 U.S. 458, 459, 52 S.Ct. 229, 76 L.Ed. 397.
The following excerpt from its opinion indicates the view of the Supreme Court.