Seaboard Coast Line Railroad v. Halks ex rel. Feagle

ROBERT P. SMITH, Jr., Chief Judge.

Seaboard appeals from a circuit court judgment assessing $5,200 in compensatory damages and $30,000 in punitive damages on a jury verdict for seven-year-old Tim Halks, who was injured when he fell upon plates of sharp metal spikes which Seaboard placed between the tracks on its railroad bridge over the Ichetucknee River. Ordinarily these menacing devices are used as cattle guards, but Seaboard installed them here to discourage children and others from walking on or jumping from its bridge, associated with the pasttime of tubing down the river, and from…