## Facts

- A narrow-gauge railroad transported standard-gauge freight-car bodies on narrow-gauge trucks as part of its regular operations.
- Certain standard-gauge car bodies had rounded/oval bolsters that could rock on trucks designed for flat bolsters.
- The railroad’s regular practice was to steady such car bodies on the trucks using blocks of wood and wire tied or fastened in place.
- James Titus, a minor employed as a brakeman for about two years, was familiar with the transfer process and the method of securing cars to trucks.
- While Titus rode atop a transferred car body, the car rocked while rounding a curve and began to topple.
- Titus jumped and was struck and killed by a following car.
- The administrator of Titus’s estate brought a wrongful-death negligence action, alleging negligent use of narrow-gauge trucks/track for standard-gauge car bodies and negligent securing of the car.

## Issues

1. Whether the railroad was negligent in transporting standard-gauge car bodies on narrow-gauge trucks and in the method used to secure the car that overturned.
2. Whether conformity with ordinary business usage/custom determined the standard of care for methods, machinery, and appliances in a hazardous industry.
3. Whether Titus’s familiarity with the practice and its dangers barred recovery under assumption of risk.

## Decision

- The Pennsylvania Supreme Court reversed the plaintiff’s verdict and entered judgment for the railroad.
- The court held the evidence did not show the railroad’s methods or appliances fell below ordinary usage of the business.
- The court treated the work as inherently hazardous and rejected imposing insurer-like liability based solely on the danger of the method.
- The court also relied on Titus’s knowledge of and experience with the method as supporting voluntary acceptance of the ordinary risks of the employment.

## Legal Principles

- Dangerous work does not itself establish employer negligence; employers are not insurers of employee safety.
- The standard of due care for methods, machinery, and appliances is measured largely by ordinary usage of the business; a party is not required to exceed the fair average of the trade.
- Industry custom is strong evidence of due care where the challenged method is routinely used in the business and no accepted, feasible safer practice is shown to have become ordinary usage.
- An employee who knows and understands an open and familiar work method may be treated as assuming the ordinary risks of that employment absent proof of negligent departure from customary practice.

## Conclusion

The court set aside the wrongful-death verdict because the plaintiff did not prove the railroad departed from customary industry practice in transporting and securing the car body, and the decedent’s experience with the practice supported treating the harm as a risk inherent in the job rather than a result of proven employer negligence.


Titus v. Bradford, B. & K. R. Co., 136 Pa. 618, 20 A. 517 (Pa. 1890)