Johnson v. Southern Pacific Co.

This appeal is prosecuted by the plaintiff from a judgment in defendants' favor after motion for nonsuit made and granted in the trial court. The action is one in which the plaintiff as administratrix of the estate of Gustave C. Johnson, deceased, and for the benefit of herself as his widow and of his two daughters, seeks to recover damages for injuries resulting in his death through the alleged negligence of the defendants. The deceased, at the time of receiving such injuries and of his death therefrom, was employed by the defendant Southern Pacific Company in the capacity of a switchman and was engaged in moving a train of freight-cars westerly from the belt-line of the state railroad along King Street, in the city of San Francisco, to the Mission Bay yards of the defendant in said city. It is expressly conceded that the collision which caused the death of the decedent occurred through the negligence of another employee of the defendant, and the only question presented in the case upon motion for nonsuit and upon this appeal is as to whether the train of cars upon which the deceased was riding in the course of his employment at the time of his injuries was engaged in interstate…