BECKER, J.
Plaintiff sued for personal injuries alleged to have been sustained by her while a passenger on one of defendant's electric street cars, and from a verdict and judgment in the sum of $5,000 in favor of plaintiff and against the defendant, defendant appeals.
Plaintiff's petition alleges four specific assignments of negligence on the part of the defendant:
"That the defendant was guilty of negligence in the following particulars:
"(1) In that it used and maintained said Jack Bellairs' stopping place as a stopping place for the discharge of its passengers, and that said place was not a reasonably safe place for that purpose, and that the defendant knew, or by the exercise of ordinary care would have known, that said place was not a reasonably safe place for said purpose.
"(2) In that its conductor gave the bell on said car a sudden and impatient ring, while plaintiff was in the act of alighting, and that said ring was of itself calculated to alarm a passenger in the act of alighting, and thereby cause said passenger to exert all possible haste to complete the act of alighting in the belief that the car was about to shoot forward, and that the passenger would be thrown therefrom.
"(3) In that it caused the car to jerk, jolt, or give a sudden movement at the time plaintiff was in the act of alighting therefrom.
"(4) In that it failed to cause the said car to remain motionless while plaintiff was in the act of alighting therefrom.
"Plaintiff alleges that some one of the negligent acts aforesaid, or that some combination of one of said negligent acts with one or more of the other of said negligent acts, or that all of said negligent acts together, was or were the proximate cause of her injuries, that she does not know which of said alternatives is true, but she alleges that some one of them is true, and that she believes that each negligent act in itself was sufficient to cause her injuries, and that all of them together concurred to cause her injuries."
The answer was a general denial and a further answer that plaintiff was guilty of contributory negligence in that she—
"without looking and without exercising ordinary care to provide for her own safety, attempted to alight from defendant's car and by her carelessness and negligence in alighting from said car, she fell and sustained the injuries, if any, of which she complains."
The testimony showed that plaintiff, on September 13, 1912, became a passenger on one of the defendant's electric street cars, known as the Creve Cœur Lake line, in the county of St. Louis, Mo.; that the car in question was what is commonly known as a "summer car," and had a running board on the outer side and an iron guard wire on the inner side, and the seats of the car were placed at right angles with its main axis. The floor and seats of the car were some distance above the said running board, making it necessary for a passenger in getting off to step down to the running board and then take another step down from the running board to reach the ground.
When the car stopped at a place known as Jack Bellairs' place, at which the cars frequently stop at the request of passengers, witnesses for plaintiff, several in number
testified that the plaintiff, who was a woman 65 years of age, was in the act of alighting from the said car, and had stepped from the main body of the car to the running board thereof, and while so standing on the running board with her right hand on the handrail, she was thrown to the ground by reason of a sudden jerk or sudden movement of the car; that at the point where the car stopped and the plaintiff was thrown off the distance of the running board to the ground was quite high, being from 18 to 30 inches, and, furthermore, that there was a sort of ditch at this point where plaintiff alighted, which was evidently used for the purpose of draining the water from the rails. The motorman and conductor of the car in question testified that the car did not give a jerk at the time the plaintiff was alighting from the car. The conductor further testified that:
"Plaintiff stepped off. She couldn't quite reach the ground; she was too short, and it looked to me like she jumped down or fell, let go and fell backwards."
Another witness for the defendant, a woman, said she did not remember the car giving a jerk or jolt at the time, but stated she was not paying particular attention as she was talking to her male companion.
A male passenger testified for the defendant that there was no jerking of the car, and one witness, who at the time was in the employ of the defendant company, working at the power station at Creve Cœur Lake, testified that he was on the car in question, and that as the car stopped he turned around to see who was getting off the car; that he saw plaintiff step onto the running board, "get hold of the handrail, and step down and as she let go she fell." One of defendant's witesses admitted on cross-examination "that the running board was pretty high from the ground." It is practically conceded that there was no platform for the alighting of passengers at the point where the car stopped and plaintiff met with her injuries.
It is conceded that plaintiff suffered serious injuries, including a broken shoulder blade, a broken collar bone, two broken ribs, left shoulder dislocation, and several ligaments torn and twisted in her right leg, which was also badly bruised, and a permanent loss of partial use of her right arm.
The court, at the close of the testimony, submitted the case to the jury, giving four instructions on behalf of the plaintiff, and eight on behalf of the defendant.
Appellant's first assignment of error is that instruction No. 2 is erroneous in that it permitted a recovery upon a mere finding that the stopping place was unsafe, without requiring a finding that the existing conditions, if any, would warrant the conclusion that said stopping place was unsafe.
In order that we may properly review this assignment of error, we set out instructions numbered 1 and 2 on behalf of the plaintiff, which read as follows:
"(1) The court instructs the jury that, if you find and believe from the evidence that on and prior to September 13, 1912, the defendant, the United Railways Company of St. Louis, was a corporation, and that it owned, operated, and maintained a double-track electric railway in the county of St. Louis commonly known as the Creve Cœur Lake Line, and that it owned, operated, and maintained in connection therewith a street car commonly known as a summer car, and that said car had a running board on the outer side, and an iron grill or guard wire on the inner side, and seats at right angles with the main axis of the car and constructed some distance above the running board, and that the defendant also owned, operated, and maintained a trolley, trolley wire, motor, controller, and other electrical appliances in the control and operation of a motorman, and used for the purpose of propelling said car over and along said electric railway, and that on and prior to said date the defendant also owned and maintained a stopping place for discharging its passengers, commonly known as Jack Bellairs' place, and that on and prior to said date the said place was not a reasonably safe place for the discharge of passengers, and that on said day plaintiff was a passenger on said car, and that her fare had been paid thereon to said place, and that the car had been signaled to stop at said place, and that the car had stopped there in obedience to said signal, if any, and that thereupon the plaintiff undertook to alight from said car, and that while she was attempting to alight from said car she was thrown or fell from said car, and that the defendant was guilty of negligence as elsewhere defined in these instructions, and that said negligence if any caused plaintiff to be thrown or to fall from said car, and that plaintiff was in the exercise of ordinary care at that time (by which is meant the exercise of such care as would be used by a person of ordinary care and caution under the same or like circumstances), and that said fall, if any, injured the plaintiff, and that her injuries, if any, were a direct result of said negligence, if any, on the part of said defendant, and that without said negligence, if any, the said injuries, if any, would not have been received, then you may return a verdict in favor of the plaintiff and against the defendant.
"(2) If you find and believe from the evidence in this case that on and prior to September 13, 1912, the defendant used and maintained the place described by the witnesses as Jack Bellairs' stopping place as a stopping place for the discharge of its passengers, and that said place was not a reasonably safe place for that purpose, and that the defendant knew, or by the exercise of ordinary care would have known, that said place was not a reasonably safe place for said purpose, then you may find that said defendant was guilty of negligence. Or if you find and believe from the evidence that the defendant negligently, that is, without exercising ordinary care, caused the car to jerk, jolt, or give a sudden movement at the time plaintiff was in the act of alighting therefrom, then you may find that the said defendant was guilty of negligence. By `ordinary care,' as used in this instruction, is meant such care as would be used by persons of ordinary prudence and caution under the same or...
