Atl. City R. Co. v. Goodin

• Decision Date: 20 January 1899
• Citation: 42 A. 333,62 N.J.L. 394
• Parties: ATLANTIC CITY R. CO. v. GOODIN.
• Court: New Jersey Supreme Court

42 A. 333

62 N.J.L. 394

ATLANTIC CITY R. CO.

v. GOODIN.

Court of Errors and Appeals of New Jersey.

Jan. 20, 1899.

(Syllabus by the Court)

Error to supreme court.

Action by Elizabeth Goodin, administratrix of John H. Goodin, against the Atlantic City Railroad Company. Judgment for plaintiff. Defendant brings error. Affirmed.

J. Willard Morgan and C. V. D. Joline, for plaintiff in error.

George J. Bergen, for defendant in error.

COLLINS, J. The writ of error in this cause removes a judgment for damages, recovered on verdict, under the death act. The chief complaint is that the trial judge refused to decide, as matter of law, that the decedent was guilty of negligence contributing to his death, but submitted the question of such negligence to the jury, as one of fact. The defendant operates a double-track railroad between Camden and Atlantic City. At Lawnside, one of its regular stopping places for accommodation trains, the station adjoins the west-bound track. Outside the east-bound track there is an uncovered platform, level with the track, where the conductor and trainmen stand to assist passengers; but, up to the time of the occurrence in controversy, passengers on east-bound trains bad been permitted, without objection, to alight, if they wished, on the side of the train towards the station, and it was customary for those living on that side of the town, or those who wished to go to the station, to alight upon that side. Each rail of each track was planked, on both sides, the whole length of the platform, and the intervening spaces were filled in with cinders to the level of the tops of the rails. There was no special place of crossing provided. The company bad published to its employes the following rule: "Any train appreaching a station, when a passenger train is receiving or discharging passengers, must be stopped before reaching the station, and must not proceed until the passenger train moves away, or a signal is given to go on, except when safeguards are provided." There were no safeguards at Lawnside, and no gates on the car platforms. On July 21, 1896", John H. Goodin was a passenger on an east-bound accommodation train, scheduled to stop at Lawnside, where he lived. It did stop there. The car in which Goodin rode was carried beyond the platform, and, on that side, stood opposite a ditch and embankment beyond. Goodin alighted on the side towards the station, and was struck and instantly killed by a west-bound express train. There was nothing to prevent his seeing the train, had he looked before stepping on the track. It is contended that he was indisputably negligent.

There are adjudged cases that hold that where a railroad company provides a convenient place at which to alight from a train, and invites egress only there, a passenger takes the risk of alighting elsewhere. Those cases are pressed upon our consideration. Whether sound or not, they do not touch the point of the present inquiry, viz.: What is the duty of passengers where, after they have alighted, there is necessity to cross a track in order to reach the company's station? We are asked to apply the same rule of duty to look and listen that is rigidly enforced upon the traveler on a highway. There is a plain difference between the case of such a traveler, about to cross a railroad, and the case of a passenger entitled to safe-conduct to or from the company's station. In this state, and in most other jurisdictions, this difference is recognized by the courts. Vice Chancellor Van Fleet, in Klein v. Jewett, 26 N. J. Eq. 474, 479, points out that the rule of duty at a public crossing has no application to a case where, by the arrangement of the company, it is made necessary for passengers to cross the track in order to reach the station or the cars. He says: "They [the railroad company] are bound to provide a way by which passengers may pass in safety. If the way provided crosses a track, no train should be permitted to pass over it, at the point where passengers are required to cross it, while a train is receiving or discharging passengers." On affirmance by this court (Jewett v. Klein, 27 N. J. Eq. 550), Mr. Justice Dalrimple said that a passenger, crossing a track which intervened between a station and a train standing at the station to receive passengers, was not bound to look to see whether another train was approaching. That decision would seem to be controlling in this case. A distinction is urged, because it related to a crossing from station to train, and not from train to station. This is a distinction without a difference. It is the passenger's right to go to the company's station, and a safe way for the purpose must be provided. In the later case in this court of Railroad Co. v. Trautwein, 52 N. J. Law, 169, 175, 19 Atl. 178, 180, Mr. Justice Depue well states the true rule thus: "The duty of a railroad company as a carrier of passengers does not end when the passenger is safely carried to the place of his destination. The company must also provide safe means for access to and from its station for the use of passengers, and passengers have a right to assume that the means of access are reasonably safe." The great current of authority elsewhere is to the effect that failure to look for trains when crossing a track, in passing from train to station, is not necessarily negligent. The question is always one for the jury. The New York cases are most numerous, many of them being in the court of last resort. A full citation will be found in Van Ostran v. Railroad Co., 35 Hun, 590. The following decisions in other jurisdictions are clear and explicit on the subject: Railroad Co. v. Johnson, 59 Ark. 122, 26 S. W. 593; Railroad Co. v. Hodgson, 18 Colo. 117, 31 Pac. 954; Railroad Co. v. Anderson, 72 Md. 519, 20 Atl. 2; Boss v. Railroad Co., 15 R. I. 149, 1 Atl. 9; Railroad Co. v. Lowell, 151 U. S. 209, 14 Sup. Ct. 281; Robostelli v. Railroad Co., 33 Fed. 796. In the case last cited, the doctrine was even applied where the crossing was not to a station building, but to a mere gate of exit, customarily used to reach the town; the stopping place being at a junction, with a single platform, on the opposite side. Some of the earlier Pennsylvania decisions were not very discriminating, and may seem to uphold the defendant's contention; but the later cases are in substantial accord with the general trend of judicial opinion. Railroad Co. v. White, 88 Pa. St. 327; Flanagan v. Railroad Co., 181 Pa. St. 237, 37 Atl. 341. The only decision to which we have been referred, directly supporting the proposition that it is necessarily negligent for a passenger to cross from train to station without looking for a possible train on an intervening track, is Connolly v. Railroad Co., 158 Mass. 8, 32 N. E. 937. That decision treats the question inadequately, without noticing the right of passengers to assume that their safety will not be imperiled by the carrier. The precedents cited are all highway cases. Massachusetts seems to stand alone on this subject.

That, in the case in hand, the passengers were invited to alight only upon a platform on the side away from the tracks, is not a controlling circumstance, but simply a fact for the jury. Such was the fact in all the cases cited. The passengers were not forbidden to alight on the other side, but, on the contrary, had always been permitted to do so. Wherever they should alight, they would have to cross the tracks to reach the...