Cameron v. Union Trunk Line

• Decision Date: 08 January 1895
• Parties: CAMERON v. UNION TRUNK LINE.
• Court: Washington Supreme Court

39 P. 128

10 Wash. 507

CAMERON v. UNION TRUNK LINE.

Supreme Court of Washington

January 8, 1895

Appeal from superior court, King county; R. Osborn, Judge.

Action by June R. Cameron against the Union Trunk Line to recover for personal injury. From a judgment for plaintiff, defendant appeals. Affirmed.

Thompson, Edsen & Humphries, for appellant.

Stratton Lewis & Gilman and A. D. Warner, for respondent.

STILES J.

The appellant is a corporation which operates lines of street railway in the city of Seattle. One of its lines is operated by cable, along James street to Broadway, where passengers are transferred, without additional fare, to a line of electric cars running to the Walla Walla addition. The two lines are not run so as to make close connection, but when a cable car is coming up to the Broadway junction, and an electric car is leaving for Walla Walla, the custom is for the cable conductor, if he has passengers for the Walla Walla line, to signal by the ringing of a bell, and if the electric car has not gone beyond Bailey street, which is one block from the junction, it stops and waits for the cable passengers to catch up with it. The respondent, a woman of 21 years, lived on the line to Walla Walla, had ridden over both lines a great many times, and was accustomed to the method of transfer stated above, when on the 5th day of February, 1893 she, with her father, took a cable car "down town" for her home. As the car she was riding in neared Broadway an electric car was seen leaving the junction for Walla Walla, and the usual signal was given to stop it. The signal was heard, and the car stopped at a point 150 or 200 feet away from the junction. At this time snow had been falling to a considerable depth, so that, to operate its cars, the appellant had been compelled to bank up the snow on either side of its track, from time to time, until the track represented a channel cut through banks of snow four or five feet in height. These banks were just far enough apart to permit of the passage of the cars, and of course any one attempting to reach a car at the point where the one in question was stopped must pass between the snow walls. As soon as they alighted, the passengers from the cable car started to overtake the electric car, and some of them reached it before it moved, and climbed aboard. Respondent, followed closely by her father, had almost reached the car, when it was started backward towards her which frightened her, and she turned to escape. But encountering her father, she either fell, or he threw her, to one side, so that, the car coming upon her at that moment, she was caught between it and the snow bank, and held there until the car had nearly passed her. She suffered no outward physical injury beyond a slight bruise, but she complains that the shock consequent upon her fright has shattered her nervous system, and rendered her unfit for her employment, which was that of a teacher of music. The electric car was one having two compartments for passengers,-the forward one closed, and the rear one open. The motorman's station was in front of the closed end of the car; that of the conductor, when not otherwise employed, at the rear of the open end. It was towards the open end that the passengers from the cable car approached. It seems that there was some understanding between the conductors on the two cars that, because of the snow, the electric car would be backed up to the junction from the place where it stopped, and the conductor of the cable car says that he called to his passengers not to hurry, and that the electric car would back up to the junction for them. But the evidence on the other side is that his announcement was not heard. On the electric car some confusion occurred. The conductor rang one bell for the car to stop, and it stopped. Then he rang three bells, which was the signal to back from a standstill, but the motorman understood it to mean "Go ahead," and he started the car ahead a few feet. Then came another signal to stop, which was obeyed. The conductor then went to the front end of the car, and spoke to the motorman, directing him to back up, which he did at once, probably getting the car under good speed before the conductor had time to reach his place at the rear of the car. There is the usual confusion in the evidence about these bells. Some witnesses heard them,-some in one way, and some in another. The...