Evening Republican, Volume 18, Number 280, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 November 1914 — FIRED ON RAILROAD GUARDS [ARTICLE]

FIRED ON RAILROAD GUARDS

Unusual Case, Interesting to Men of the Rails, Put Up to Jury for a Decision. ■ !■■ II I ft _An unusual case of negligence against a railroad company was heard by the United States circuit court of appeals, Sixth J circuit, in McCalman vs. Illinois Central Railroad company. The action was brought for Injuries to a railroad guard who was hurt during a strike as a result of collision with a poese of deputy marshals sent to * crossing where the guard was stationed, as the result of a telephone message' that there was trouble at that point. The marshals mistook the guards for strikers and fired on them, and the court held that It was a question for the Jury as to whether the company was negligent in falling to notify the marshale and guards of the presence of the other. The court said:

"We conclude, upon the whole, that the instant case should have been submitted to the jury under appropriate instructions, and consequently that it was error to grant the motion to diAny presumption that the defendants notified the deputy marshal* of the presence of the guards at the road crossing was overcome by the clear tendency of the evidence. The telephonic,message sent and received for'the marshals fails to show any allusion to the railroad guards. The language of the deputy who opened the firing at the crossing was totally inconsistent with the idea that the marshals thought the men found there were railroad guards, and, moreover, it cannot be assumed that deputy marshals would have opened a murderous fire upon men they understood were there to aid them in suppressing trouble at the yards.”