Conway v. Lewiston & Auburn Horse R. Co.

• Decision Date: 13 March 1895
• Citation: 87 Me. 283,32 A. 901
• Parties: CONWAY v. LEWISTON & AUBURN HORSE R. CO.
• Court: Maine Supreme Court

32 A. 901

87 Me. 283

CONWAY

v. LEWISTON & AUBURN HORSE R. CO.

Supreme Judicial Court of Maine.

March 13, 1895.

(Official.)

Exceptions from supreme judicial court, Androscoggin county.

This was an action on the case by Lottie Conway against the Lewiston & Auburn Horse-Railroad Company, upon which the plaintiff recovered a verdict of $347.17 for injuries received by her in alighting from the defendant's horse ear on the evening of August 27, 1892, on Skinner street, in Lewiston, her ankle being broken. The plaintiff claimed that at the point where she alighted, close by the car, was a ditch at the side of the road, and that the conductor came along when he stopped the car, and helped her off at this point; that in the dark, not knowing anything about the ditch, and supposing it to be a safe place to alight, she stepped down, and received the injury. Judgment for plaintiff. Defendant excepts. Sustained.

A. R. Savage and h. W. Oakes, for plaintiff.

F. W. Dana and W. P. Estey, for defendant.

EMERY, J. The defendant company was operating a street railway through various streets in Lewiston. The plaintiff was being transported along the street, as a passenger, on one of the company's open cars. Upon her signifying a desire to alight, the car was stopped to enable her to do so, though at some distance beyond the place where she gave the signal. It chanced that at the place where the car stopped the side of the street sloped away into a ditch, so that the step down from the car to the surface of the ground was longer than usual, or than she anticipated, and consequently she lost her balance, fell, and was injured. She claimed at the trial that the company was bound to stop the car at a place safe for alighting, and, this place proving to be unsafe, the company was responsible for her injury.

Thereupon, the presiding justice ruled and instructed the jury, in part, as follows: "I instruct you, as matter of law, that it is a duty incumbent upon the common carrier, it is a duty upon this defendant corporation, carrying passengers for hire, to give them a suitable place of ingress, or opportunity to enter upon the car, and to give them a place of safety for exit or egress from the car. It is a question of fact for you, from the evidence in this case, to decide whether or not, at the point where this car stopped, there was a suitable or safe place for this plaintiff to alight from that car.

"If it was not a safe place, under all the circumstances of the case, and an injury was received by her, and she herself was in the exercise of due care at that time and place, then she is entitled to recover.

The correctness of this statement of the law applicable to street railways is the question presented by the defendant's exceptions.

Upon a careful reading of the language of the ruling, it will be seen that the question of care or negligence on the part of the defendant was entirely eliminated. No matter how great and painstaking the care and foresight of the...