{
  "id": 856653,
  "name": "Chicago and Alton Railroad Company v. August Heinrich",
  "name_abbreviation": "Chicago & Alton Railroad v. Heinrich",
  "decision_date": "1895-01-28",
  "docket_number": "",
  "first_page": "399",
  "last_page": "401",
  "citations": [
    {
      "type": "official",
      "cite": "57 Ill. App. 399"
    }
  ],
  "court": {
    "name_abbreviation": "Ill. App. Ct.",
    "id": 8837,
    "name": "Illinois Appellate Court"
  },
  "jurisdiction": {
    "id": 29,
    "name_long": "Illinois",
    "name": "Ill."
  },
  "cites_to": [],
  "analysis": {
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    "ocr_confidence": 0.498,
    "pagerank": {
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    "sha256": "487c485ed34ac645e5805f5ab21641288bcb87dac882a1949face0e0df57e412",
    "simhash": "1:cc422d448a843cd4",
    "word_count": 993
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  "last_updated": "2023-07-14T20:02:41.767696+00:00",
  "provenance": {
    "date_added": "2019-08-29",
    "source": "Harvard",
    "batch": "2018"
  },
  "casebody": {
    "judges": [],
    "parties": [
      "Chicago and Alton Railroad Company v. August Heinrich."
    ],
    "opinions": [
      {
        "text": "Me. Justice Gary\ndelivered the opinion oe the Court.\nIf we had no personal knowledge of the topography, we should infer from the evidence that two streets, one called 36th street and the other called Oakley avenue, cross each other, probably at a right angle, and that diagonally across the intersection of the streets, is the railway of the appellant. The points of the compass, however, are not indicated by the evidence. The first witness speaks of being at Oakley avenue and 36th street and the Alton crossing, and that the crossing was blocked at 36th street and Oakley avenue with the railroad. And a witness for the appellant said he was the engineer at the time the engine was working at the crossing of Oakley avenue and 36th street. Another witness said, \u201c the street, Oakley avenue, is twenty-five feet wide.\u201d Another said, \u201c Oakley avenue there is the usual width, about fifty or sixty feet.\u201d\nThough the word \u201c avenue \u201d is not so exclusively applied to a highway as is the word \u201c street,\u201d yet there is enough in the evidence to justify the refusal of the court to instruct that there was no evidence that Oakley avenue was a public street. Pittsburg, etc., Ry. v. Callaghan, No. 4893.\nOn the morning of October 1, 1889, the appellee, driving a two-horse team attached to a heavy wagon, came to the crossing, waited for the cars of the appellant to back off of it, and when they had done so, and the engine still stood near the crossing, the appellee undertook to cross. From some cause, whether because he crossed his lines, or because his team was scared by escaping steam from the engine, his team went into a ditch; he fell from his wagon, ivhich ran over him, inflicting very severe injury.\nThere is no complaint that the damages are excessive, if the appellee ought to recover at all. Whether the appellant was negligent as to escaping steam from an engine by the side of the eroding\u2014wh ether the appellee \u00e9xercised due care\u2014 every question which in cases of this character usually arises, was left to the jury under instructions more favorable to the appellant than can be justified; and as is to be expected in a case where an individual is injured at a grade crossing of a highway and railway, the latter is found guilty by a jury. Yet we are bound by a verdict.\nThe law confides to a jury the finding of facts. We are here to administer, and not to disregard the law. We must regard a verdict as the result of a calm, dispassionate and unprejudiced revieAV of all the evidence, unless the contrary very clearly appears. And no rhetoric as to prejudice against railroads can justify a departure from that rule.\nIn the queritur the appellant was named as the Chicago, Alton and St. Louis Bailroad Company; it pleaded by the name \u201c Chicago & Alton B. B. Co.\u201d\nThe first count charges that the plaintiff Avas about to cross defendant\u2019s railroad.\nThe court gave, and the jury wholly disregarded, this instruction:\n\u201c 14. The plaintiff, by the first count of the original declaration, has made it a material question of fact, in issue ill this case, that the railroad in controversy was the Chicago, Alton and St. Louis Eailroad, and unless he has proved that fact, that it was the Chicago, Alton and St. Louis Eailroad, or was known as such, he can not recover under those (that) count.\u201d\nThe verdict is not, however, to be set aside for that. The instruction is a mistake. The count ivas that the railroad was the \u201c defendant\u2019s.\u201d \u201c St. Louis \u201d in the queritur was a mere misnomer, of which no advantage could be taken but by plea in abatement, and after verdict was immaterial. Tenth clause, Sec. 6, Chap. 7, E. S., Amendments.\nThe appellant presented twenty-eight instructions, of which the court gave twenty as asked, and two more modified, and here twenty-one errors are assigned.\nWe can not discuss the whole, but have followed the brief of the appellant. It is urged as the last objection that on. the trial \u201c the court held that it was incumbent on the defendant to show that the amount of pressure of steam on the engine in controversy was, first, necessary; second, unavoidable; and yet after the evidence closed and the arguments had been made the court modified its view and gave instruction asked by appellant that it \u2018\u2018 had a right to use all the steam necessary,\u201d etc.\nBut if the court was wrong on the trial as to \u201c unavoidable,\u201d the record shows that it was the appellee who excepted, and the appellant can not complain of a ruling to which it did not except.\nThere is no error in the record, nothing to complain of but the finding of the jury upon a question of fact.\nThe judgment is affirmed.",
        "type": "majority",
        "author": "Me. Justice Gary"
      }
    ],
    "attorneys": [
      "William E. Hughes, attorney for appellant; William Brown, general solicitor, of counsel.",
      "John J. Coburn, Geo. W. Brown and Case, Hogan & Case, attorneys for appellee."
    ],
    "corrections": "",
    "head_matter": "Chicago and Alton Railroad Company v. August Heinrich.\n1. Verdicts\u2014How Regarded in Law. \u2014A verdict is regarded in law as the result of a calm, dispassionate and unprejudiced review of all the evidence in the case, unless the contrary clearly appears.\n2. Misnomer\u2014How Taken Advantage of.\u2014No advantage can be taken of a misnomer, except by a plea in abatement; after the verdict, it is immaterial.\n3. Appellate Court Practice \u2014Parties Must Except, ete.\u2014A litigant can not, in the Appellate Court, complain of a ruling to which he did not except in the court below.\nMemorandum.\u2014Action for personal injuries. In the Superior Court of Cook County; the Hon. Nathaniel C. Sears, Judge, presiding. Declaration in case; plea, not guilty; trial by jury; verdict and judgment for plaintiff; appeal by defendant. Heard in this court at the October term, 1394, and affirmed.\nOpinion filed January 28, 1895.\nWilliam E. Hughes, attorney for appellant; William Brown, general solicitor, of counsel.\nJohn J. Coburn, Geo. W. Brown and Case, Hogan & Case, attorneys for appellee."
  },
  "file_name": "0399-01",
  "first_page_order": 395,
  "last_page_order": 397
}