Jared Cone

Heavy Damages

Probably the heaviest damages ever given by a court for personal injuries against a railroad company, was awarded recently in the Wyandotte district court against the A.T.& S.F. railroad company in favor of Jarod Cone. We clip from the Kansas City Journal the following brief statement of the case:

The case of Jared Cone against the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe railroad company, for injuries received by him, which has been on trial for the last eight days in the district court of Wyandotte county, resulted in a verdict in favor of Cone for the sum of $50,000, being the full amount claimed by him.

This is the second trial of the case. It was first tried last winter when the jury hung, ten standing for the plaintiff and two for the company. This time the jury were a unit from the start. Cone was the rear brakeman on a passenger train coming east on the night of December 5, 1883. The train stopped at Newton for supper, where a car was put into the train. The night was rainy and dark, and as Cone was on the railing, between the sleeper and the coach east of it, fixing the bell cord, Corcoran, the conductor, without waiting to know whether the train was in condition to go, and without warning to Cone, signaled the train to pull out. Cone was thrown beneath the cars and was carried or dragged under the train 800 or 1,000 feet; and was found by the track a few moments after in an insensible condition, his coat badly torn, his pants and drawers torn to shreds, his skull fractured, his right arm broken at the wrist, the palm of his right hand torn out, the back of it scarred and mutilated so that a portion had to be amputated, his right leg crushed so that it had to be taken off below the knee, and the flesh torn off his left side. There was a car load of witnesses examined, and the expenses of these two trials alone to the company cannot be much short of $3,000 to $4,000. Every exertion has been put forth by each side in this controversy, and it has been tried with all the ingenuity, skill, and ability the parties could bring to bear. One hundred and thirty-six questions of fact were propounded to the jury by the railroad company, and which they struggled with until they answered them. The jury would have been out but a short time had they not been delayed by making answer to these questions. It is said that this is the biggest verdict ever returned in the United States in a personal damage case. The argument of counsel occupied about eighteen hours, one of the counsel for the plaintiff occupying nearly half that time in his opening argument. A motion will be made for a new trial.

The Burrton Monitor, Friday August 14, 1885. Page 2.