William Bergen v. United States

Bergen, plaintiff-appellant, against whom judgment went in the trial court, asserts he was injured while riding as a paying passenger on a train of the Alaska Railroad, an instrumentality of the United States. Bergen apparently was sitting in a coach seat at the time the passenger car in which he was riding was derailed and turned over. The cause of the wreck we do not know. At least, there is no suggestion that Bergen caused the wreck or was guilty of negligence, contributory or otherwise, on the occasion of the derailment of the train.

Plaintiff’s pleadings do not commend themselves to study, but under them the government was on notice that he had a claim for personal injury arising from the wreck. Plaintiff very inadequately attempted to prove that negligence of the defendant caused the wreck. In this he failed. However, we believe that this was clearly a case of an instrumentality and events solely within the control of the defendant and a case for the application of res ipsa loquitur. The burden of going forward on negligence was upon defendant, and plaintiff’s abortive attempt to prove the cause of the wreck, we hold, did not remove this burden.

Plaintiff ever since the…