Craig v. Boston Elevated Ry. Co.

• Decision Date: 06 January 1911
• Parties: CRAIG v. BOSTON ELEVATED RY. CO. (two cases).
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

207 Mass. 548

93 N.E. 575

CRAIG v. BOSTON ELEVATED RY. CO. (two cases).

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Suffolk.

January 6, 1911

COUNSEL

George S. Littlefield and Calvin S. Tilden, for plaintiffs.

John T Hughes, for defendant.

OPINION

LORING J.

The plaintiff in the first action (a woman 67 years of age) had been to the theater in company with her own daughter, a Mrs Goodwin and Mrs. Goodwin's daughter. After the theater they waited for a car at the corner of Washington and Boylston streets. The car stopped. The plaintiff entered first, followed by Mrs. Goodwin, then by Mrs. Goodwin's daughter, and lastly by her own daughter. The plaintiff, her own daughter and Mrs. Goodwin testified at the trial; Mrs Goodwin's daughter did not. The plaintiff's story was that she went to the forward end of the car because there was but one vacant seat at the rear. To quote her own words: 'She was in the act of sitting down when the car gave a sudden jerk and threw her forward. She thought she was facing toward the side of the car at the time. She was just in the act of sitting down. She was thrown forward, first with a sudden jerk, and then jerked back, and fell, she thought on Mrs. Goodwin, * * * who had followed her into the car. When she sat down her left knee began to pain, and, as a result of what happened, she suffered from pain and has a weakness in the leg.' The plaintiff further testified that Mrs. Goodwin was not thrown down, but 'if she hadn't been holding onto a strap, she would have gone down too,' and that no one else in the car was thrown over. Mrs. Goodwin testified that there were a number of jerks near together and 'violent enough to take you off your feet,' but that they did not take her off her feet; that the sudden jerks threw the plaintiff off her feet into a passenger's lap, and 'jerked me some, but I recovered myself by taking hold of the strap.' The plaintiff's daughter testified that 'the car started and then stopped, not a dead stop, and then started again'; that one motion followed the other suddenly, and that the car went 'a very, very little distance' on the first start before it stopped again; that she had to support herself 'by taking hold of the door frame, or it would throw me in the car'; that she did not see her mother thrown and could not do so, being behind Mrs. Goodwin and her daughter. The testimony showed that all four were safely seated, that no other persons boarded the car at the time, and that those previously in the car were seated.

We...