Beverley v. Boston Elevated Ry. Co.

• Decision Date: 28 February 1907
• Citation: 194 Mass. 450,80 N.E. 507
• Parties: BEVERLEY et al. v. BOSTON ELEVATED RY. CO. (two cases).
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

194 Mass. 450

80 N.E. 507

BEVERLEY et al. v. BOSTON ELEVATED RY. CO. (two cases).

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Suffolk.

February 28, 1907

The eighth requested ruling mentioned in the opinion was as follows:

'The defendant company is not responsible for the negligent acts of other passengers which it could not foresee, nor is it responsible for accidents happening solely through the ordinary rushing and crowding which occurs on the elevated system during rush hours.'

COUNSEL

Walter I. Badger, N. L. Frothingham, and Philip G. Carleton, for plaintiffs.

Endicott P. Saltonstall and Sanford H. E. Freund, for defendant.

OPINION

LORING J.

1. The exception must be overruled to the admission of the question 'If three cars unloaded 33 passengers each upon the platform between Nos. 1 and 2 would it make a fair-sized crowd on that platform?'

An ordinary person does not know from a statement of the facts whether the unloading of three cars containing 33 passengers each would make a fair-sized crowd on the platform in question, the dimensions of which were in evidence. That is a conclusion which relates to matters which cannot be reproduced before the jury precisely as they appeared to the witness and which men in general are capable of understanding. The evidence comes within the rule laid down in Commonwealth v. Sturtivant, 117 Mass. 122, 19 Am Rep. 401.

2. We are of opinion that the court could allow the plaintiff to ask James, the defendant's inspector of surface cars on the division in question, whether the crowd on the platform of the station could be controlled by the number of incoming surface cars allowed to go into the station, by the number of persons allowed to go into the station through the turnstiles, and by the unmber of incoming elevated trains allowed to go into the station; and that by controlling them there the size of the crowd in the station could be controlled. The issues being tried were in substance: First, was the defendant negligent in allowing the crowd to gather which did gather on the platform in question at the time in question? Second, was it negligent in the means which it adopted to control it? Third, was it negligent in the area of its platforms in connection with the length of tracks for cars to stand at one time in delivering and taking on passengers? The means which it had to prevent a crowd from gathering on the platform was a fact to be proved. The only objection made by the defendant is that every one knows the facts proved. If they do, the defendant was not injured by the admission of the evidence. If they do not, the evidence was admissible.

3. The next exception argued is the ruling of the court that it was competent for the plaintiff to prove that at some time since the accident the defendant had extended its platform so as to cover 25 feet in length of the inner end of track 1. This was offered by the plaintiff to show that it was not only physically possible to increase the platform in this way which the defendant's counsel admitted, but that it was practically possible, having regard to the conduct of its...