Spade v. Lynn & B.R.r.
| Decision Date | 16 January 1899 |
| Citation | 52 N.E. 747,172 Mass. 488 |
| Parties | SPADE v. LYNN & B.R.R. |
| Court | United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court |
S.L. Whipple and W.R. Sears, for plaintiff.
C.K Cobb, for defendant.
This is an action for personal injuries, which already has been before the court. 168 Mass. 285, 47 N.E. 88. At the second trial the evidence was that the defendant's conductor, in removing a drunken man from a car, jostled another drunken man, who was standing in front of the plaintiff, and threw him upon her. The fall upon her seems to have been a trifling matter, taken by itself, but the fright caused by that and the rest of the occurrences in the car resulted in physical injury. The case comes up again upon exceptions.
The judge was asked to direct a verdict for the defendant. We find some difficulty in seeing upon what ground the jury were warranted in finding for the plaintiff. So far as appears the conductor was acting rightly in putting the drunken man off the car. As against the plaintiff, he was doing one of the things which she had to contemplate as liable to happen when she got into the car. We all know that, if people are standing in the passageway of a street car, you cannot remove a man forcibly through the passageway without more or less contact. If the fall upon the plaintiff was the necessary consequence of a lawful and reasonable act, then it was one of the risks which she assumed when she took her passage.
It is a question which deserves more discussion than it has received, whether a man is answerable for an injury inflicted upon an innocent stranger knowingly, or with sufficient notice of the danger, if the injury is an unavoidable incident of lawful self-protection. It might be said, and it has been held, when it is a question of paying damages, that a man cannot shift his misfortunes to his neighbor's shoulders. Gilbert v. Stone, Aleyn, 35, Style, 72; Scott v. Shepherd, 2 W.Bl. 892, 896; Cooley, Torts, p. 115. See McLeod v. Jones, 105 Mass. 403, 405; Miller v. Horton, 152 Mass. 540, 547, 26 N.E. 100; Pierce v. Steamship Co., 153 Mass. 87, 90, 26 N.E. 415; Whalley v. Railway Co., 13 Q.B.Div. 131. And compare the rule as to duress in contracts and conveyances. Fairbanks v. Snow, 145 Mass. 153, 155, 13 N.E. 596. On the other hand, the contrary has been intimated in a case of shooting in self-defense, the injury to the third person being treated on the footing of accident. Morris v. Platt, 32 Conn. 75, 84. See Bac. Max. Reg. 5, 6; Addison, Torts (6th Ed.) 380, 383. And the right to pull down a house when the destruction is necessary to stop a fire, as it usually is stated, looks the same way. See Taylor v. Inhabitants of Plymouth, 8 Metc. (Mass.) 462, 465; Print Works v. Lawrence, 23 N.J.Law, 590, 613. The alleged immunity for the necessary destruction of a building suggests that perhaps the question cannot be answered in general terms, and that one possible distinction may be found where the parties have a common interest, even though the act done in furtherance of it may cause more harm than good to the plaintiff. Perhaps it would be unsafe to find any countenance to such a distinction in decisions as to the rights of landowners or officials in diking against water when it appears as a common enemy. Rex v. Commissioners, 8 Barn. & C. 355; Nield v. Railway Co., L.R. 10 Exch. 4. Compare Whalley v. Railway Co., 13 Q.B.Div. 131. But when we go a step further, and take a case like the present, where all parties concerned are in a conveyance, and to maintain order and keep the car clear of obnoxious persons is the defendant's right, and its duty to the plaintiff and the other passengers, no passenger can complain of any consequence which the performance of that duty necessarily entails. We assume for present purposes that carriers of passengers owe the same degree of care in respect of such matters as they owe in respect of the construction and management of their vehicles, but, if that care is shown, probably the injury must be regarded as an inevitable accident. As to whether there was any negligence in the manner of expelling the drunken man, or otherwise, we will go no further than to say that it has not been pointed out to us. We need not decide the question, as there must be a new trial for another reason.
A ruling was asked to the effect that the plaintiff could recover only for the pain and fright caused by the contact with her person, and not for such mental disturbance and injury as was caused by other acts of...
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