BENGAL PROVINCIAL RAILWAY CO Vs. GOPI MOHAN SINGH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is an appeal under Clause 15 of the Letters Patent from a judgment of Mr. Justice Digambar Chatterjee confirming the decree of the lower Appellate Court.

(2.) The suit was one brought by the plaintiff against a Railway Company for damages. The cause of action alleged was that a train of the defendant Company ran into and damaged the plaintiff s carriage as it was crossing the defendant Company s line. The question therefore turns upon whether or not there was negligence on the part of defendant Company, and, if so, whether or not there was contributory negligence on the part of the plaintiff. As this case comes before the High Court by way of second appeal, we cannot disturb any finding of fact, if there was any evidence to support it. The Judge of the lower Appellate Court has come to the conclusion that the proximate cause of the damage to the plaintiff s carriage was the running of the train against the carriage, and he finds that there was negligence on the part of the defendant Company. The evidence shows that there was a gate at this level-crossing where the accident occurred, and that this gate was left open. There was thus an invitation to all comers to cross the line and an intimation that it could be crossed with safety. There is, therefore, ample evidence to support the finding of negligence against the defendant Company, and it cannot be disturbed.

(3.) Then, was there contributory negligence on the part of the plaintiff? There again we have the finding of the lower Appellate Court that there was not, for the learned Judge of that Court excludes the running of the carriage across the line, as he terms it, as being a cause of the accident, and that expression in the context in which it appears amounts to a negation by the Court of any contributory negligence on the part of the plaintiff.