Bethmann v. Old Colony R. Co.
| Decision Date | 08 January 1892 |
| Citation | 29 N.E. 587,155 Mass. 352 |
| Parties | BETHMANN v. OLD COLONY R. CO. |
| Court | United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court |
C.T. Gallagher and H.R. Bailey, for plaintiff.
J.H Benton, Jr., for defendant.
The plaintiff was a passenger on the defendant's railroad and, while alighting from a car at the station in Boston fell and was injured. At the close of the evidence the defendant asked the court to rule that the plaintiff could not recover, and the only exception taken is to the refusal so to rule.
Two questions are presented: First, was there any evidence that the defendant was negligent? Secondly, was there any evidence that the plaintiff was in the exercise of due care?
On the platform in the defendant's passenger station was a truck or movable platform 37 feet and 3 inches long, 7 feet and 2 inches wide, and 21/2 feet high. The top of it was on a level with the platforms of the cars. This truck rested on wheels and ran on iron tracks parallel with the tracks on which the cars ran, so that its edge was very near the sides of the cars on the adjacent track, and it was used in loading and unloading baggage. The train on which the plaintiff came arrived at the station about 8 o'clock in the morning, and was stopped in such a position that the forward end of the car on which the plaintiff was riding was opposite to the truck, so that passengers getting out at that end would be obliged to step upon the truck. Passengers alighting from the train at that place naturally go towards the forward end of the car, as that is in the direction which they take in going out through the station to the street. The plaintiff, with most of the other passengers in the car, got off at the forward end of the car upon the truck, and in passing along fell off from it and was injured. At the time of the accident the plaintiff was a passenger, and the defendant was bound to exercise towards her the utmost care and diligence consistent with the proper management of the business in which it was engaged. Dodge v. Steam-Ship Co., 148 Mass. 207, 19 N.E. 373. There was evidence that soon after the accident the truck was rolled along towards the end of the track, in the direction in which the plaintiff's train had been going, and there is nothing to show why it might not have been near the end of the track before the accident, in such a position that the car would not have been opposite to it when the train stopped. Nor can we see why the train might not easily have been stopped before the car reached the truck, even if the truck had properly been left where it was. That passengers would get out at the forward end of the car upon the truck, and get down from it with more or less of inconvenience and risk of injury to themselves, might naturally have been expected. Whether, under the circumstances, it was...
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