Central of Georgia Ry. Co. v. Brown

• Decision Date: 18 April 1914
• Docket Number: 277.
• Citation: 81 S.E. 857,141 Ga. 553
• Parties: CENTRAL OF GEORGIA RY. CO. v. BROWN.
• Court: Georgia Supreme Court

81 S.E. 857

141 Ga. 553

CENTRAL OF GEORGIA RY. CO. v. BROWN.

No. 277.

Supreme Court of Georgia

April 18, 1914

Syllabus by the Court.

While a carrier of passengers may not be held to so high a degree of care in the matter of providing and maintaining stational facilities as in the act of transportation, it is the duty of such carrier to use extraordinary diligence in protecting the safety of a passenger in alighting from its carriage at a place selected by it for the passenger to alight. In determining whether this degree of diligence has been exercised, the safety of such place for alighting under the circumstances may be considered with the other facts of the case.

The instruction relative to the diminution of damages where the plaintiff was to some extent negligent, though inaccurate will not require a new trial under the facts of the case.

A ground of negligence was the alleged failure of the carrier to provide a reasonably safe place for a passenger to alight at night, without a light, on account of the distance from the car step to the ground. It appeared in evidence that the surface of the ground where the injury was alleged to have occurred was afterwards elevated by the carrier. Under such circumstances the defendant has no real ground of complaint that the court instructed the jury that they would not be authorized to find from this act of repair "that the defendant was negligent as to the safety of the alighting place at the time of the occurrence."

It is not error to fail to charge that, if the plaintiff and the defendant are equally at fault, no recovery can be had, in the absence of a pertinent written request.

The verdict is not excessive; it is supported by the evidence and no sufficient reason appears for the grant of a new trial.

Error from Superior Court, Washington County; B. T. Rawlings Judge.

Action by C. C. Brown against the Central of Georgia Railway Company. Judgment for plaintiff, and defendant brings error. Affirmed.

See also, 138 Ga. 107, 74 S.E. 839.

F. H. Saffold, of Swainsboro, J. H. Harris, of Sandersville, and Lawton & Cunningham, of Savannah, for plaintiff in error.

Smith Hastings, of Atlanta, and Hardwick & Hyman, of Sandersville, for defendant in error.

EVANS P.J.

The plaintiff recovered a verdict against a railroad company for personal injuries alleged to have been caused by the defendant's negligence. He alleged that he was a passenger, and that the railroad company was negligent in furnishing him an unsafe place to alight from the train, under the circumstances set out in his petition. For a more detailed statement, see the report of the case in 138 Ga. 107, 74 S.E. 839.

1. The court charged the jury: "You look at the facts as before said, of which you are the sole judges, and, if you find from all the facts and circumstances connected with this case that the plaintiff, after purchasing a ticket at Tennille, became a passenger upon the train of the defendant company, destined for Davisboro, then I charge you that the rule of care incumbent upon the railroad as to receiving, carrying, and discharging the plaintiff in this case would be extraordinary care in maintaining, so far as his discharge is concerned, a safe place of alighting would be embraced within this rule." The criticism is that the use of the words "a safe place of alighting" made the defendant company an insurer against damages; that the charge placed upon the defendant company a burden not required by law, as the only requirement of the law as to the place of alighting is that it should be a reasonably safe place; and that the charge was not authorized by the pleadings. With respect to the first and third criticisms of this excerpt from the charge, it is sufficient to say that the instruction fell within the allegations of the petition, and cannot be construed as imposing upon the defendant company an absolute liability as an insurer against damages arising from an injury sustained by a passenger in alighting from the train. Nor do we think that the court confused the duty which a carrier owes in furnishing stational facilities with the extraordinary diligence which a carrier is bound to exercise in receiving, transporting, and discharging its passengers. A railway company is bound to use ordinary care in providing stational...