Henry Billings Brown

“ Judging from the common experience of men, there can be but one plausible solution of the problem how the collision occurred. He did not look; or, if he looked, he did not heed the warning, and took the chance of crossing the track before the train could reach him. ”

“ He was a young man. His eyesight and hearing were perfectly good. He was acquainted with the crossing, with the general character of the country, and with the depth of the excavation made by the highway and the railway. The testimony is practically uncontradicted that for a distance of 40 feet from the railway track he could have seen the train approaching at a distance of about 300 feet, and as the train was a freight train, going at a speed not exceeding 20 miles an hour, he would have had no difficulty in avoiding it. ”

“ The duty of a person approaching a railway crossing, whether driving or on foot, to look and listen before crossing the track, is so elementary, and has been affirmed so many times by this court, that a mere reference to the cases of Railroad Co. v. Houston, 95 U.S. 697, and Schofield v. Railway Co., 114 U.S. 615, 5 Sup. Ct. 1125, is a sufficient illustration of the general rule.
There were but three witnesses to the accident. Two of these were women who were walking down the highway, and approaching the crossing on the opposite side, facing the team. ”