Adams v. Baltimore Transit Co.

• Decision Date: 04 December 1953
• Docket Number: No. 33,33
• Citation: 203 Md. 295,100 A.2d 781
• Parties: ADAMS v. BALTIMORE TRANSIT CO. et al.
• Court: Maryland Court of Appeals

Page 295

203 Md. 295

100 A.2d 781

ADAMS v. BALTIMORE TRANSIT CO. et al.

No. 33.

Court of Appeals of Maryland.

Dec. 4, 1953.

Rehearing Denied Jan. 8, 1954.

George L. Clarke and Everett L. Buckmaster, Baltimore (D. Franklin McGinnis and Buckmaster, White, Mindel & Clarke, Baltimore, on the brief), for appellant.

Hamilton O'Dunne, Benj. C. Howard, Baltimore (Edwin T. Steffy, Jr., Baltimore, on the brief), for Baltimore Transit Co.

Thomas M. Jacobs, Asst. City Sol., Baltimore (Thomas N. Biddison, City Sol., Baltimore, on the brief), for Mayor and City Council.

Before SOBELOFF, C. J., and DELAPLAINE, COLLINS, HENDERSON and HAMMOND, JJ.

COLLINS, Judge.

This is an appeal from a judgment entered for the appellees as a result of the sustaining of demurrers filed by the appellees to the second amended declaration of the appellant, Charlie B. Adams. The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Company, hereinafter called the Railroad, one of the original defendants, made settlement with the appellant and it is no longer a party to this case.

For the purposes of the demurrers we will consider as true all allegations well pleaded. The first count of the declaration and the particulars alleged the following: The defendant, appellee, the Baltimore Transit Company, hereinafter called Transit Company, on or about January 22, 1948, was a public carrier engaged in Baltimore City in the business of transporting passengers for hire and in operating and maintaining transportation facilities. The Railroad on said date was engaged in Baltimore City in the business of owning or leasing property for revenue and profit and operating a railroad for the transportation for hire of persons and property. The appellee, the Mayor and City Council of Baltimore, hereinafter called the City, on and about said date, was a municipal corporation of the State of Maryland. The plaintiff, Charlie B. Adams, appellant here, was an employee of the Maryland Drydock Company, hereinafter called the Drydock Company, who was transported by the Transit Company as a paying passenger in going to and from his place of work at the Drydock Company.

On or about the date aforesaid and for a long time prior thereto, the Transit Company and the Railroad maintained tracks and operated their transportation facilities in and through the City of Baltimore and more particularly in the vicinity of the public highways, Sun Street and Frankfurst Avenue in Baltimore under franchises granted by the City. Frankfurst Avenue runs east and west and is intersected by Sun Street which runs north and south. The entrance to the property of the Drydock Company was on the north side of Frankfurst Avenue and west of Sun Street. The Drydock Company on said date and for a long time prior thereto employed numerous persons, including the plaintiff. These persons required transportation to and from the Drydock Company and their homes which were located in various parts of Baltimore and its environs. On or about the same date and for a long time prior thereto the Railroad maintained tracks and operated trains over and across Sun Street, a public highway, and also over land on each side of Sun Street, which was adjacent and parallel to and on the south side of said Frankfurst Avenue. Said tracks ran east and west and parallel to Frankfurst Avenue. The Railroad owned a narrow strip of land, about one hundred feet in width, adjacent and parallel to and on the south side of the tracks of the Railroad. A number of years prior to the date aforesaid the Railroad and the Transit Company entered into an agreement for their mutual benefit and profit under which the Transit Company erected and maintained on said narrow strip of land of the Railroad transportation facilities among which were tracks over which it operated its cars and a waiting station, about fifty feet from Sun Street, near the said Railroad tracks. The said narrow strip of land of the Railroad on which said tracks, waiting station and other facilities were located was subject to the joint control of the Transit Company and the Railroad. In entering into said agreement it was the intention of both the Railroad and the Transit Company for the Transit Company to provide transportation for the numerous employees of the Drydock Company in going to and from their homes and place of work. Both the Railroad and the Transit Company knew or intended that such employees, on the date aforesaid and for a long time prior thereto, habitually and customarily would have to cross over the said tracks of the Railroad on Sun Street in going to and from the said waiting station and the said premises of the Drydock Company. On the date aforesaid and for at least twenty- five years prior thereto the general public also habitually used Sun Street as a public way, route and street over and across the said tracks of the Railroad.

On or about the date aforesaid and for a long time prior thereto the Railroad frequently left long trains blocking and obstructing Sun Street and for long distances on either side thereof, 'to wit, for one-half mile or more on either side thereof, for long periods of time, to wit, for many hours at a time'. The said trains obstructed the passage of pedestrians so that in order for said employees of the Drydock Company to go to and from their said place of employment and the said waiting station it was necessary for them to pass and climb between the cars of such standing trains and, on or about said date and for a long time prior thereto, said employees customarily and habitually would pass and climb between the cars of such standing trains for said purposes. All of the defendants knew or should have known of the aforesaid dangerous condition created by the blocking and obstructing of Sun Street and of the said custom and necessity of said employees of passing and climbing between the cars of the standing trains of the blocking Railroad and that such crossing was an unsafe place and dangerous to the said employees and other members of the public using it. The Railroad and the Transit Company, by entering into said agreement with the knowledge and intention aforesaid, and the Transit Company, by the erection, maintenance and use thereunder of the said waiting station and other transportation facilities on the said property of the Railroad, under the conditions herein described, created a cul-de-sac in that, by letting off said employees of the Drydock Company at the said waiting station, the Transit Company let them off at a place from which the only reasonable way of ingress and egress for said employees of the Drydock Company, including the plaintiff, desiring to go between the said waiting station and the Drydock Company, was to climb through the cars of the Railroad which were blocking and obstructing Sun Street as aforesaid. The said cul-de-sac thus created on or about the date aforesaid and for a long time prior thereto was a dangerous place into which the said employees including the plaintiff were let off by the Transit Company. There was nothing to prevent the plaintiff from going south on Sun Street. However, he could not reach his place of employment by so doing. All the defendants including the plaintiff and other employees of the Drydock Company had to cross the tracks of the Railroad and Sun Street to reach their place of employment although they knew or should have known that the said tracks were wrongfully blocked and obstructed as aforesaid. The Railroad Company and the Transit Company by said agreement between them and the Transit Company by erecting and operating its cars and waiting station thereunder and the City by permitting Sun Street to be illegally and wrongfully blocked as aforesaid invited employees of the Drydock Company including the plaintiff, on or about the date aforesaid and for a long time prior thereto, to cross over the Railroad tracks at the place aforesaid and to go between the standing train of the Railroad which blocked said Sun Street. Said employees including the plaintiff, in response to the invitation and knowledge of all the defendants, customarily and habitually did climb between the cars of the standing trains to go from the waiting station to the Drydock Company. On or about the said date, the plaintiff, as a paying passenger, rode to work on a street car of the Transit Company and was let off by it at said waiting station into said cul-de-sac at about 7:30 a. m., which was the time when many employees of the Drydock Company, to the knowledge of all the defendants, customarily and habitually crossed the said tracks of the Railroad at the place aforesaid in going to their place of employment. At that time trains of the Railroad were illegally and wrongfully blocking and obstructing Sun Street and for one-half mile or more on either side thereof for a period of several house where the employees crossed. There was no indication when said trains would be moved. The plaintiff believed because of past practice of the Railroad that said train would block said crossing for a long period of time. In order to get to his place of employment in response to said invitation of all the defendants, the plaintiff had to walk approximately seventy-five feet and go between the cars of the standing train and there was no other reasonable way for the plaintiff to go to his said place of employment from the said waiting station. While so going between said cars, in the exercise of due care and without any negligence on his part contributing thereto, and without any protection or warning being given him by any of the defendants, the plaintiff was caused to be suddenly and violently struck, thrown to the ground and dragged by a train of cars of the Railroad and to be seriously and permanently injured when the locomotive owned and operated by the Railroad in a careless, reckless and negligent manner violently and suddenly struck and put into motion the cars between which the plaintiff was passing. As a...