Coyne v. Pittsburgh Rys. Co.

• Decision Date: 02 May 1958
• Citation: 141 A.2d 830,393 Pa. 326
• Parties: Aleen COYNE and Thomas Coyne and Mary Coyne, her parents, v. PITTSBURGH RAILWAYS COMPANY, a Corporation and Charles Baier. Appeal of PITTSBURGH RAILWAYS COMPANY, a Corporation.
• Court: Pennsylvania Supreme Court

Page 830

141 A.2d 830

393 Pa. 326

Aleen COYNE and Thomas Coyne and Mary Coyne, her parents, v. PITTSBURGH RAILWAYS COMPANY, a Corporation and Charles Baier Appeal of PITTSBURGH RAILWAYS COMPANY, a Corporation.

Supreme Court of Pennsylvania.

May. 2, 1958.

Rehearing Denied June 11, 1958.

Earl W. Brieger, Pittsburgh, for appellant.

Emanuel Goldberg, Pittsburgh, for appellees.

Pringle, Bredin & Martin, John David Rhodes, Pittsburgh, for Charles Baier.

Before CHARLES ALVIN JONES, C. J., and BELL, CHIDSEY, MUSMANNO, ARNOLD, BENJAMIN R. JONES and COHEN, JJ.

MUSMANNO, Justice.

Aleen Coyne, 19 years of age, was struck and injured by an automobile when she alighted from a street car which had been travelling eastwardly on East Carson Street in Pittsburgh and had stopped near a Tintersection known as Terminal Way. She and her parents brought an action in trespass against the Pittsburgh Railways Company and the operator of the involved automobile, Charles Baier. The jury returned a verdict in favor of the plaintiffs and against both defendants. The defendant railways company has appealed seeking judgment n. o. v. or a new trial. The defendant Baier did not appeal.

The railways company argues that the plaintiffs failed to show that the motorman of the street car committed any act of negligence and, if he did, it was not established that that negligence was the proximate cause of Aleen Coyne's injuries. Reading the record in the light most favorable to the verdict-winners, as we are required to do in considering a motion for judgment n. o. v., the following recital of events emerges.

On the evening of October 20, 1951, at about 8 o'clock, Aleen Coyne boarded a No. 50 street car on Carson Street with the intention of getting off at Terminal Way where she was to meet other girls with whom she was going to the movies. She took a seat in the middle of the car and then, when it got to Third Street, which was the regular car stop immediately prior to the Terminal Way stop, she advanced to the front of the car and handed the motorman her transfer ticket. She turned and faced the doors, awaiting the car's arrival at her destination. There was nothing to visually apprise her of the Terminal Way stop since Carson Street at this stretch of the thoroughfare on its southern side (which she was facing) is shadowed by a massiv 20-foot-high retaining stone wall which offers no marking or architectural feature to designate the Terminal Way stop. The car ground to a halt, the motorman threw open the doors, the girl descended to the street and took two or three steps on the pavement when she was violently struck in the rear by an automobile which had been following the street car for some distance but which, as the car passed Terminal Way, moved abreast and alongside the car. The plaintiffs presented evidence to show that the street car ignored the Terminal Way stop and proceeded to a point 90 feet beyond it where the motorman discharged Miss Coyne at the moment that the automobile, having swung around the rear of the car, was now seeking to pass it, the driver believing that the car, since it had passed Terminal Way, would now unabatedly continue on its way up Carson Street. With this showing of evidence, the plaintiffs contended that the motorman was guilty of a specific act of negligence in that, after having failed to halt his car at a regular car stop, he discharged his passenger at a manifestly dangerous spot.

The defendant company denied that its street car had not stopped at Terminal Way and called witnesses who testified that it was precisely at Terminal Way that the collision between Baier's automobile and Miss Coyne occurred. Of course, these diametrically opposing stories as to whether the car did or did not stop at Terminal Way passed through the crucible of the jury's deliberations and fused in the verdict which now proclaims on the imperishable tablets of a factual finding that the street car disregarded the Terminal Way stop. Thus, we have no question on this appeal where the car stopped. We are concerned only with, whether, in taking Miss Coyne 90 feet beyond the regular stopping place, the motorman precipitated his passenger into a dangerous situation which he, with cautionary foresight, could have avoided.

The defendant company asserts that we should state, as a matter of law, that there was no danger associated with the motorman's discharging Miss Coyne at the point where she eventually alighted. This, we cannot do. In the way stands established principles of law as unsurmountable as the Chinese Wall which confronted Miss Coyne as she left the car. In the case of O'Malley v. Laurel Line Bus Co., 311 Pa. 251, 254, 166 A. 868, 869, we said:

'It is clear that the defendant was guilty of negligence. ' A common carrier for hire owes to its passengers the highest degree of care and diligence in carrying them to their destination and (in) enabling them to alight safely' (Hughes v. Pittsburgh Transportation Co., 300 Pa. 55, 150 A. 153) and to avoid any possible danger while doing so. Lyons v. Pittsburgh Railways Co., 301 Pa. 499, 152 A. 687. It is the duty of a carrier of passengers to set them down at the Terminus of their journey, and to afford them a sufficient time to alight in safety. If for any cause the carrier makes its stop short of or beyond the point where it knows the passenger desires to alight, it should give him notice of the fact before he attempts to leave the car, and a failure so to do is a violation of duty for which the carrier may be held responsible.' (Emphasis supplied.)

In Lyons v. Pittsburgh Rys. Co., 301 Pa. 499, 152 A. 687, 688, we also said:

'It was defendant's duty, not only to carry plaintiffs safely, but to afford them an opportunity to alight and pass out of danger.' (Emphasis supplied.)

In view of what the record in this case discloses it would be visionary to assume that we could declare as an indisputable legal proposition that the motorman used the 'highest degree of care' in what he did. There is evidence to show that the Terminal Way stop on the southern side of Carson Street is at its best a hazardous spot at which to wait for or alight from a street car. The towering stone wall is only eleven feet distant from the car track, thus allowing but a restrictive space for the passage of automobiles. A pedestrian caught at this point with both a street car and automobile occupying their respective lanes of travel could only find safety against the base of the wall on a ledge about 12 inches wide, which allowed standing room for only the thinnest of travelers.

Passengers intending to board the street car at Terminal Way on the southern side of Carson Street did not wait at that southern side with its frowning, bleak stone barrier where they would be the prey of passing vehicles, the target of splashing mud, and the victim of inclement weather from which there was no refuge. They bided their time on the northern side of Carson Street with its wide sidewalks, houses and stores, and companionable atmosphere. When they saw their street car bowling eastwardly alone Carson Street toward the Terminal Way stop, they would prepare to cross the street, and, with traffic permitting, traverse the car tracks to the boarding point. The area was so generally accepted as dangerous that the City of Pittsburgh stationed a policeman there by day. During the daylight hours both sides of the street were usually cluttered with parked automobiles so that automobiles moving on the street were compelled to trail behind the street cars. However, at night, with the southern side of the street free of parked automobiles, the mobile automobiles travelled by the side of the street cars in overtaking and passing them. All this was known to the motorman who had been operating a car on this particular route for six months and had been employed by the company for an overall period of five years. He knew, or should have known, that to discharge a passenger at night along the Chinese Wall at any point other than the regular car stop was to push that passenger into the jaws of a potential nutcracker.

Despite the assumed frigidity of the law, it cannot be denied that text books, court decisions and commentaries demonstrate that the main purpose of the law is to protect life, limb, and property and all rights appertaining thereto, from unnecessary invasion. Humanity is included within that blanket protection. There is nothing in all the law books which can possibly give support to the proposition of the appellant that, as a legal proposition, the motorman had fulfilled every requirement of the law by opening the doors of his car; when, by a simple turning of his head for a moment he could have determined whether an automobile was approaching the spot where his passenger was about to alight.

The motorman testified as follows:

'Q. Did you say anything to Miss Coyne as she alighted from the street car or before she alighted? A. No, sir.

'Q. Did you yourself look to see whether there was any traffic coming alongside the streetcar at the time? A. No, I didn't see any.

'Q. Did you look to see if there was any? A. You mean by getting up and looking out?

'A. No.

'Q. Would you have been able to see traffic moving along the right-hand side of the streetcar, that would be...