Lucas

A jury trial in this wrongful death action resulted in a damage judgment for the surviving family. Defendant Southern Pacific Company appeals.

Decedent Raymond Lucas was killed in a grade crossing collision with a Southern Pacific train several miles south of the City of Stockton. At the crossing there were two pairs of railroad tracks, running in a north-south direction. Mathews Road, running in a southwesterly-northeasterly direction, crossed the tracks at a slight angle. Lucas was driving a truck-trailer combination easterly on Mathews Road. The rig had an over-all length of 60 feet. It consisted of a tractor and two hopper-type trailérs loaded with bulk grain. Lucas had commenced driving the grain truck only two- days before the accident. The accident occurred after Lucas drove his tractor across the westerly pair of tracks. At that time the train (consisting of one locomotive, 5 flatcars and a caboose) was traveling southward on the west pair of tracks. Although Lucas attempted too late to put the truck into reverse and to back off the tracks, the southbound train crashed into the truck-tractor, carrying it 1,789 feet south of the point of impact. Lucas was fatally…