Haley v. St. Louis Transit Company

Decision Date23 December 1903
PartiesFANNIE E. HALEY, Appellant, v. ST. LOUIS TRANSIT COMPANY
CourtMissouri Supreme Court

Appeal from St. Louis City Circuit Court. -- Hon. W. B. Douglas Judge.

Affirmed.

Lyon & Swarts and Charles M. Polk for appellant.

Appellant as a passenger on the respondent's car, was entitled to be carried to her destination in safety, and to be given a reasonable opportunity there to alight in safety, and if she was carried beyond her destination by the carelessness and negligence of the respondent or its agents, to a point in returning from which to her destination she encountered obstructions and dangers, and thereby sustained injuries, the respondent is liable to her for such injuries, provided she exercised reasonable care and prudence for her own safety in returning to her destination; and it was a question of fact for the jury to determine whether or not appellant exercised such care as an ordinarily prudent person would have exercised under the circumstances. Evans v Railroad, 11 Mo.App. 463; Winkler v. Railroad, 21 Mo.App. 99; Warden v. Railroad, 35 Mo.App. 631; Strange v. Railroad, 61 Mo.App. 586; Spry v. Railroad, 73 Mo.App. 203; Hicks v. Railroad, 68 Mo. 329; Adams v. Railroad, 100 Mo. 555; Railroad v. Lockhart, 79 Ala. 315; Railroad v. Dancy, 97 Ala. 338; Light & Power Co. v. Nolan (Ala.), 32 So. 715; Caldwell v. Railroad, 89 Ga. 550; Railroad v. Kyte, 6 Ind.App. 52; Railroad v. Cayce (Ky.), 34 S.W. 896; Light & Power Co. v. Lowry, 79 Miss. 431; Foss v. Railroad, 65 N.H. 256; Weed v. Railroad, 17 N.Y. 362; Samuels v. Railroad, 35 S.C. 493; Railroad v. Terry, 62 Tex. 380; Railroad v. Crispi, 73 Tex. 236; Railroad v. Ricketts (Tex.), 70 S.W. 315; Railroad v. Smith (Tex.), 32 S.W. 710; Railroad v. Hennessy (Tex.), 49 S.W. 917; Henry v. Railroad (Wash.), 64 P. 137; Sievers v. Nav. Co., 24 Wash. 302; Brown v. Railroad, 54 Wis. 342; Fordyce v. Dillingham (Tex.), 23 S.W. 550.

Geo. W. Easley with Boyle, Priest & Lehmann for respondent.

The fact that defendant carried the plaintiff one block beyond her intended destination, and that she alighted from the car and, after reaching the sidewalk, slipped upon snow and ice and fell and was injured, does not authorize a recovery. There was no causal connection between defendant's failure to stop the car at Garrison avenue, and the plaintiff's injuries. The plaintiff's injuries were not the "direct and immediate consequence" of carrying her past Garrison avenue. Sira v. Railroad, 115 Mo. 138; Haley's Admr. v. Railroad, 21 Iowa 15; Railroad v. Rose, 11 Neb. 177. The sidewalk was no more dangerous to plaintiff than to any others passing over it, and her fall bore no causal relation to her having been carried past Garrison avenue, and can not be said to have been the proximate cause of her injury. Railroad v. Johnson, 92 Ala. 204; Moak's Underhill on Torts, 16; Cooley on Torts, 73; Addison on Torts, 40; Wharton on Negligence, 138; Phillips v. Dickerson, 85 Ill. 11; McClellan v. Railroad, 94 Ind. 276; Morrison v. Davis, 20 Pa. St. 171; McCleary v. Railroad, 3 Neb. 44; Bosch v. Railroad, 44 Iowa 402; Brown v. Railroad, 20 Mo.App. 222; Francis v. Transfer Co., 5 Mo.App. 7; Henry v. Railroad, 76 Mo. 288; Ashley v. Harrison, 1 Esp. 49; Railroad v. Staley, 40 Ohio St. 118; Linfin v. Lowry, 34 N.W. 22; Shurtleff v. Parker, 130 Mass. 293; Ward v. Weed, 7 Bingh. 211; Alexander v. Town of Carlisle, 17 N.E. 200; Barton v. Agricultural Society, Albany Law Journal (Wis.) 371.

OPINION

BRACE, P. J.

This is an action for damages for personal injuries sustained by the plaintiff in consequence of a fall upon a sidewalk in the city of St. Louis.

The defendant objected to the introduction of any evidence under the petition on the ground that it did not state facts sufficient to constitute a cause of action. The objection was overruled, and evidence introduced by plaintiff, at the close of which, the court at the request of the defendant instructed the jury "that under the pleadings and the evidence in this case the plaintiff is not entitled to recover and your verdict must be for the defendant." Thereupon plaintiff took a nonsuit with leave and thereafter, her motion to set the same aside duly filed, having been overruled, she appealed, and assigns for error the giving of defendant's instruction in the nature of a demurrer to the evidence.

The case made by the plaintiff's evidence is substantially as follows:

The plaintiff at the time of the injury was a dressmaker, sixty years of age, weighing 170 pounds, and resided at 1017 North Garrison avenue -- the southwest corner of Garrison and Easton avenue. She was in perfect health, and in the language of one of her witnesses, "was robust, tall, proud, well dressed, had style about her, and earned two dollars a day making dresses." On the 30th of December, 1899, about ten o'clock at night, the plaintiff boarded the west-bound Easton avenue car of the defendant at the crossing of Eighteenth street and Franklin avenue, for the purpose of returning to her home at the southwest corner of Garrison and Easton avenues. As the car was approaching Garrison avenue, where she desired to alight, she pushed the button and rang the bell twice, once before the car reached the street next east of Garrison avenue, and again when the car was a short distance east of Garrison avenue, but the car did not stop until it reached the next street, Cardinal avenue, one block west of Garrison avenue. When the car stopped she went to the door, "fussed" with the conductor, who was on the platform outside, for not stopping, got off the car on the north side, went to the north sidewalk of Easton avenue, and was walking east toward Garrison avenue and her home, on that sidewalk, when she fell and thereby sustained "an intra-capular fracture of the femur or a broken bone of the neck of the hip." The injury is serious and permanent.

It further appeared from the plaintiff's evidence that on the 30th of December, 1899, the maximum temperature in St. Louis was 13, the minimum 7, and that there was a half inch of snow on the ground that evening, and the weather clear. That the snow fell principally on December 27th, on which day the fall was one and three-tenths inches. That the snow storm on the 27th of December was general throughout the city, and there was no snow fall after 10:35 a. m. of that day. That the maximum temperature on that day was 24, and the minimum 18, and on the 28th the maximum was 26, and the minimum 15, and on the 29th the maximum was 19 and the minimum 11. The evidence further tended to show that the night of the 30th of December, although clear, was dark, that there was more light at the Garrison avenue crossing than there was at the Cardinal avenue crossing. That the sidewalk on which plaintiff was walking was covered with snow and ice, was slippery, was shaded by trees growing thereon, and that the stores along it were all closed, and that such was the condition at the place where she fell, which was about half way between the two streets.

The evidence for the plaintiff made a prima facie case of negligence against the defendant, in that its servants failed to stop the car at Garrison avenue in compliance with plaintiff's timely signal therefor, given in the manner and by the means provided by the defendant for that purpose, and the only question presented by the record is: Was such negligence the proximate cause of the injuries for which she seeks to recover damages in this action? The learned counsel for the plaintiff contend, that it should be so held, and cite many cases in support of this contention. We have carefully examined all of these cases and find that each of them is easily distinguishable from this case; and have found none in which a defendant has been held liable in circumstances like those of the case in hand. As was said by Mr. Justice Miller in Insurance Co. v. Tweed, 74 U.S. 44, 7 Wall. 44 l. c. 52, 19 L.Ed. 65, "It would be an unprofitable labor to enter into an examination of these cases. If we could deduce from them the best possible expression of the rule, it would remain after all to decide each case largely upon the special facts belonging to it, and often upon the very nicest discriminations."

In the opinion of Mr. Justice Strong in Railroad v. Kellogg, 94 U.S. 469, 24 L.Ed....

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