Rensselaer Republican, Volume 22, Number 19, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 January 1890 — Ben Smoot Downs The Railroads. [ARTICLE]

Ben Smoot Downs The Railroads.

The big trial of the case of Ben Smoot airainst the L., N. A. <fc C. and C. iV I. C. Railways, jointly, came to an end at Kentland, last Saturday. The result was a swingeing verdict for Smoot, the jury deciding that $5,000 would be the right amount to compensate for the damages received. The case lasted for two weeks, and was tried before Judge McConnell, of Logansport. Tlte injuries for which the suit was brought were received one night last fall, when Mr. Smoot walked out of an unfastened door in the depot at Fair Oaks, and received a fall of four or five feet His knee was hurt by the fall, and also his spine. The hurt in his spine, the plaintiff claimed, has resulted in a permanent disease of that part. As to the character and extent of that resulting disease, the expert physicians who testified in the case differed widely, but the old and supposed unanswerable problem of “who shall decide when the doctors disagree” is always solved promptly enough when it is a case of a private individual against a railroad corporation. The jury decides, and in favor of the individual, every time. At the trial the plaintiff took the ground that the companies were responsible for the accident, through the act of their agent, the station agent, in leaving the dobr unfastened and thus exposing people to the danger of walking out of it and getting a fall, such as occurred to Mr. Smoot. The defense claimed that Mr. Smoot had been a frequent visitor to Fair Oaks and had had abundant opportunities to know of the dangerous character of the place where lie got his injury. They further sought to make it appear that a sound back-bone was of no special advantage to a. gentleman of Mr. Smoot’s alleged constitutional aversion to labor, and that he would not do any more heavy sitting around since the accident than he did before. The verdict of the jury is evidence that these points set up by the defense were not well established, in the opinions of that body. The attorneys for the plaintiff were Messrs. Hammond and Chilcote, of Rensselaer, and Saunderson, of Kentland. The railroads were represented by their respective corporation attorneys. This case was begun in Jasper county and taken to Newton by the railroads, on change of venue. The court costs in the case will largely fall upon this county, of course.