Fennell v. Illinois Cent. R. Co.
| Decision Date | 20 October 1964 |
| Docket Number | No. 31577,31577 |
| Citation | 383 S.W.2d 301 |
| Parties | Dorothy Lane FENNELL and Robert William Fennell, (Plaintiffs) Respondents, v. ILLINOIS CENTRAL RAILROAD COMPANY, a Corporation, (Defendant) Appellant. |
| Court | Missouri Court of Appeals |
Gentry, Bryant & Sheppard, Arnot L. Sheppard, St. Louis, for appellant.
Bernard A. Barken, Harold L. Satz, St. Louis, for respondents.
Plaintiffs, husband and wife, instituted this action for the injuries sustained by the wife, and plaintiff husband for the medical expenses and the loss of the services and society of his wife. Hereinafter we shall refer to plaintiff Dorothy Fennell as plaintiff.
On February 24, 1961, plaintiff, with her daughter and grandson, boarded one of defendant's passenger trains at St. Louis, Missouri, to travel to Columbus, Georgia. At Carbondale, Illinois, it was necessary for plaintiff to change trains. It was admitted by defendant that it owned the railroad station and facilities involved herein at Carbondale, Illinois. Defendant's three tracks ran on the east side of the passenger station in a north and south direction.
The train arrived in Carbondale at about nine o'clock p. m., at a time when it was dark and snowing very hard, and blowing very hard. When the train stopped, plaintiff proceeded toward the vestibule of the railroad car, carrying an overnight bag in her left hand, and with her right hand she held the hand of her three-year-old grandson who was following her. Plaintiff's daughter brought up the rear, holding the boy's other hand. As plaintiff started down the three train steps to the station platform to the west, plaintiff testified that it was her intention to step onto the station platform, which appeared to be directly beneath her. As she made the step from the bottom step with her left foot, instead of stepping on the station platform as she intended, her left foot went all of the way to the ground, between the bottom step and the station platform, and her right foot remained on the bottom step until after she had drawn her left foot up. This maneuver was accomplished, according to plaintiff's testimony, by throwing herself back against the train entrance and grasping a handhold on the north side of the train entrance with her right hand.
Defendant's employee, a train porter, then assisted plaintiff to the platform, using a step box. Plaintiff, her daughter, and her grandson proceeded to the station house, thence to a drug store, purchased some ointment, and then went to a restaurant and ate. After finishing their food, plaintiff went back to the station house and to the ladies' room and rubbed some of the ointment on her leg.
Plaintiff boarded the southbound train to Columbus, Georgia, and after arriving in Columbus she consulted a doctor after becoming sick during the train trip from Carbondale to Columbus, experiencing severe pain in her back and leg. She returned the next day to St. Louis by antomobile driven by her daughter, a trip of about 900 miles. On the day of returning from Columbus, Georgia, plaintiff consulted her family doctor and began taking treatment, including a hospitalization period of three weeks.
The station platform at Carbondale was 10 1/2 inches above the ground, and approximately 3 3/4 to 5 3/4 inches horizontally west of the bottom step of the railroad car. The distance of the bottom step above the platform was about 19 inches. Plaintiff estimated the distance from the bottom step to the platform as being approximately two feet. From the top of a step box up to the bottom step of the train it was about 8 1/2 inches.
The station house at Carbondale was 24 feet from the halted train. On the east side of the station house and under the eaves of the roof, there were ten 200-watt bulbs, separated 26.7 feet from each other. About 400 feet north of the station house door there were some floodlights, and other floodlights approximately 1,000 feet south, although defendant's evidence was that these lights would not light up the area where the people were getting off the train, because the floodlights in question were to the east of the stopped train.
The sole ground of negligence submitted by plaintiff was defendant's failure to provide sufficient light to adequately illuminate the platform and surrounding area. After verdict and judgment for plaintiff Dorothy Fennell in the sum of $6,400, and for plaintiff Robert Fennell, her husband, in the sum of $2,100, defendant appealed.
Defendant claims that the trial court erred in denying defendant's motions for a directed verdict for the reason that plaintiff's evidence did not establish that defendant failed to 'provide sufficient light to adequately illuminate' the station platform 'and the surrounding area' because such evidence consisted of conclusions and was contrary to physical facts.
In determining whether plaintiff's evidence made a submissible case against defendant, we view the evidence in the light most favorable to plaintiff, give it the benefit of all favorable, reasonable inferences, and disregard defendant's evidence unless it aids plaintiff's case. Southwestern Bell Telephone Company v. Chester A. Dean Construction Co., Mo., 370 S.W.2d 270; O'Leary v. Illinois Terminal Railroad Company, Mo., 299 S.W.2d 873.
Defendant maintains that the only testimony regarding the sufficiency of light came from plaintiff and her daughter, and that their testimony constituted no more than conclusions as to the sufficiency of the light, citing Fowler v. Terminal Railroad Association of St. Louis, Mo.App., 372 S.W.2d 497; Lindquist v. S. S. Kresge Co., 345 Mo. 849, 136 S.W.2d 303; Peck v. Yale Amusement Company, Mo., 195 S.W. 1033; and Rush v. Townsend and Wall Company, Mo., 343 S.W.2d 44.
There is no question that the defendant's train arrived in Carbondale at a time when it was dark. Both plaintiff and her daughter testified that at the point where they alighted from the train the light was very dim and that the only light they saw came from inside the train station, through the windows 24 feet away. According to defendant's witness Humphries, the bulb over the ticket office, which was replaced after the 9:15 train got to Carbondale, and the floodlights in the yard east of the track on which the train in question stopped, would not light up the area but would cast a shadow at the point where plaintiff alighted. This evidence, coming from defendant's witness, would tend to corroborate the testimony of plaintiff and her daughter to the effect that the area was dimly lighted. In addition, plaintiff's evidence showed that it was snowing hard; and this, of course, would affect the light coming from whatever lights were burning.
In distinguishing the cases cited by defendant, we note that in the case of Fowler v. Terminal Railroad Association of St. Louis, supra, the plaintiff therein submitted photographs showing the steps to be visible, and plaintiff admitted that he 'seen' the steps. As this Court therein stated, this 'took the issue of inadequate lighting out of the case.' In examining Lindquist v. S. S. Kresge Company, supra, cited by defendant, the evidence showed that plaintiff noticed the three lights over the landing where she fell, and that she had no 'difficulty in getting around for lack of light.' Defendant also cites Peck v. Yale Amusement Company, supra, which involved a fall in a theater balcony. In this case, the criticism of the plaintiff's testimony, characterized by the Court as being conclusions, stemmed not only from the need for a low light level in a theater, but from plaintiff's broken language being practically unintelligible.
Defendant urges that the recent Supreme Court case of Rush v. Townsend and Wall Company, Mo., 343 S.W.2d 44, controls this case. We distinguish it because in the plaintiff's own testimony in the Rush case she admitted she could see the children involved on the steps, and therefore her claim that the steps were inadequately lighted could not stand. As the Court therein stated:
Plaintiff contends that on this question of sufficiency of evidence, this case comes within the purview of Dixon v. General Grocery Company, Mo., 293 S.W.2d 415, wherein the plaintiff, a window washer, fell when a window sill was made dark by being covered by a canopy blocking the light. The Court stated, at page 420:
Also, in Capstick v. T. M. Sayman Products Co., 327 Mo. 1, 34 S.W.2d 480, the Court accepted the testimony of a condition of being dimly lit where there was further evidence that the light was in the rear of a person descending the steps. In Gillespie v. Terminal Railroad Association of St. Louis, Mo.App., 204 S.W.2d 598, the Court said, at page 604:
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