Bush v. St. Joseph & B.H. St. Ry. Co.
| Decision Date | 28 June 1897 |
| Citation | 113 Mich. 513,71 N.W. 851 |
| Parties | BUSH v. ST. JOSEPH & B. H. ST. RY. CO. |
| Court | Michigan Supreme Court |
Error to circuit court, Berrien county; Orville W. Coolidge, Judge.
Action by George Newton Bush against the St. Joseph & Benton Harbor Street-Railway Company for personal injuries caused by defendant's negligence. There was a judgment for plaintiff, and defendant brings error. Affirmed.
A. P. Cady and M. L. Howell, for appellant.
Gore & Harvey, for appellee.
The plaintiff was injured in a collision caused by a street car striking the rear end of his wagon as he was driving off from the track. The court left two questions to the jury besides that of the amount of damages, viz.: (1) Whether the defendant was negligent in not reducing the speed of the car after discovering the plaintiff upon the track; (2) contributory negligence. The jury found specially that the car was reversed before it struck the wagon, and the motorman was negligent in not reversing sooner; that the car slid on the track for a very short distance before it struck the wagon; that the car was not checked before it was reversed.
The plaintiff was driving upon the track, and, hearing the bell ring, attempted to drive off, but, owing to the slipping of the wheels upon the iron rails, and the heaviness of the load, the horse did not get the wagon off in time, and the car struck the wagon, and injured the plaintiff. There seems to be no doubt that the plaintiff was seen by the motorman for a sufficient distance to have enabled him to stop the car had he attempted to do so at once, and, on the other hand there was abundance of time for the plaintiff to have driven off from the track before the car reached him had the horse been able to pull the wagon off at once. We have in several cases had occasion to allude to the fact that the uses to which the highway is put render it necessary that wagons shall cross and perhaps sometimes drive upon the street-car tracks, and it is obvious that the car that should be brought to a halt every time that a wagon was seen to be upon or in close proximity to a track would be a long time reaching its destination, and street railroading upon any such plan would be a farce, and rapid transit impossible. On the other hand, a driver who should never drive across a track before an approaching car might wait a long time for an opportunity. From the very nature of things, the driver must determine when it is safe to cross, and the motorman may run his car towards a wagon upon the track in the expectation that it will be driven out of...
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