Drummy v. Minneapolis & St. L. R. Co.
| Decision Date | 14 December 1911 |
| Court | Iowa Supreme Court |
| Parties | DRUMMY v. MINNEAPOLIS & ST. L. R. CO. |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
Appeal from District Court, Palo Alto County; D. F. Coyle, Judge.
Action to recover damages for personal injuries due to the negligence of the defendant received by plaintiff while sustaining toward defendant the relation of passenger. There was a verdict for plaintiff, and from judgment in her favor the defendant appeals. Affirmed.W. H. Bremner, Soper & Soper, and Davidson & Burt (Geo. W. Seevers, of counsel), for appellant.
Morling & Morling, for appellee.
The plaintiff with her husband, traveling from the city of Red Wing, Minn., to their home in Emmetsburg, arrived in Waterville, Minn., on the line of the Great Western Railroad about 9 o'clock in the evening, with the intention of taking one of the night trains on the defendant's road from Waterville to Emmetsburg. It appeared that two trains were available to them; one leaving Waterville at 9:52, the other at 10:15. Plaintiff and her husband went from the Great Western station to a hotel for supper, and, leaving the hotel some time after 9 o'clock, went to the station of the defendant road, where they arrived a little before 9:30. They found no light in the waiting room, and plaintiff's husband knocked on the window of the office, which was lighted, for, the purpose of securing light. There was already one other passenger in the waiting room. A second summons of like character secured a response from the office, and in a few minutes some one came into the waiting room from the office and proceeded to light a lamp on a bracket in one corner. While this lamp was being lighted, the plaintiff, in response to an urgent call of nature, went out of the waiting room to the platform to seek a secluded place for relieving herself. The station building fronted the main track to the west, separated therefrom by a brick platform. At the south end of the station building was a plank platform rising slightly less than an inch to the foot from the brick platform to the loading platform on the east side of the building, where there was a side track for freight cars. Plaintiff proceeded west up the inclined platform, and, looking down at the freight track, thought she saw, as she testified, that there was only a step of six or eight inches down to the ties, and she attempted to step from the platform to the switch track. In the darkness, being deceived as to the distance, she fell to the switch track, receiving severe and permanent injuries; the height of the platform above the track being about four feet and a half. There was no light outside of the station building, although there was an unlighted lamp at the south end. It is conceded to have been impracticable to maintain a barrier at the place where plaintiff fell for the reason that the platform was used for unloading freight from cars; but there were steps from the south end of this platform to the level of the track, these steps being guarded by railings, and there was a railing along the south side of the platform which ran east and west at the south end of the building. The ground of negligence submitted to the jury was the failure to have the platform from which the plaintiff fell lighted; the absence of railing or barrier being referred to by the court in this connection only as bearing upon the question whether there was negligence in failing to light.
[1][2] 1. The insufficiency of the evidence to show negligence on the part of appellant in failing to have lighted the unguarded portion of the freight platform at the place where plaintiff fell is the ground principally relied upon for reversal. We think, however, that the question was for the jury. Plaintiff was not required to remain in the waiting room in order to avoid the possibility of being injured on the platforms surrounding the waiting room, evidently intended for the use of persons having business with the defendant. It is not unusual for passengers awaiting the arrival of a train to walk about on the platforms adjacent to the station, and we think that it is the duty of a railroad company to anticipate that they will do so and to take reasonable precautions that in doing so while exercising reasonable care they shall not be injured. There is nothing in McDonald v. Chicago & N. W. R. Co., 26 Iowa, 124, 95 Am. Dec. 114, or Hiatt v. Des Moines, N. & W. R. Co., 96 Iowa, 169, 64 N. W. 766, both of which cases are relied upon for appellant, inconsistent with this rule. On the contrary, it is supported by the great weight of authority in this state and elsewhere. Carver v. Minneapolis & St. L. R. Co., 120 Iowa, 346, 94 N. W. 862;Merryman v. Chicago Great Western R. Co., 135 Iowa, 591, 113 N. W. 357;Missouri Pacific R. Co. v. Neiswanger, 41 Kan. 621, 21 Pac. 582, 13 Am. St. Rep. 304;Buenemann v. St. Paul, etc., R. Co., 32 Minn. 390, 20 N. W. 379;Louisville, etc., R. Co. v. Treadway, 143 Ind. 689, 40 N. E. 807, 41 N. E. 794;McKone v. Michigan Central R. Co., 51 Mich. 601, 17 N. W. 74, 47 Am. Rep. 596;Beard v. Connecticut, etc., R. Co., 48 Vt. 101. In McNaughton v. Illinois...
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