Eddlemon

Plaintiff sued to recover damages for personal injuries suffered by him, arising out of a collision between an automobile which the plaintiff was driving and a train operated by the defendants, at a grade crossing at Stege station in the city of Richmond. A verdict was rendered in the sum of seven, thousand dollars, which was reduced by the judge of the trial court, upon a motion for a new trial, to four thousand dollars. Judgment was entered against the defendants for the reduced amount, from which they prosecute this appeal.

The plaintiff was a police officer of the city of Richmond. On the night of the accident, in the discharge of his duties as such, he and another police officer of said city proceeded by automobile to the vicinity of the station of the defendant Southern Pacific Company at Stege, for the purpose of examining vacant buildings and cars for detection of undesirable persons. Plaintiff was driving the automobile, and was seated on the left side thereof. On leaving the main part of the city of Richmond, he ran along the tracks of the Southern Pacific Company north of Stege station for a distance of about a mile and a half to a point back of the railroad station at…