Foley v. Brunswick Traction Co.

• Decision Date: 15 November 1901
• Citation: 50 A. 340,66 N.J.L. 637
• Parties: FOLEY et ux. v. BRUNSWICK TRACTION CO.
• Court: New Jersey Supreme Court

50 A. 340

66 N.J.L. 637

FOLEY et ux.

v. BRUNSWICK TRACTION CO.

Court of Errors and Appeals of New Jersey.

Nov. 15, 1901.

(Syllabus by the Court.)

Error to supreme court.

Action by John Foley and wife against the Brunswick Traction Company. Judgment for plaintiffs, and defendant brings error. Reversed.

The plaintiff was a passenger on one of the defendant's cars, and in alighting on the highway at a point of transfer received the injuries for which she brought this suit Her account of the manner in which she received her injuries is as follows:

"I was getting off the car, and I took the hand rail,—took hold of it to get down,—and when I put one foot down?One foot went all right down, but when I went to put down the other foot, this foot turned. There was a stone. The foot I put down first. There Was a stone; and there was loose earth, and a stone under it; and my foot turned, and threw me on my side, like that; and there was a big stone that my hip came on."

Alan H. Strong, for plaintiffs.

W. P. Voorhees, for defendant.

GARRISON, J. (after stating the facts). The first exception sealed for the defendant was: "To so much of the charge wherein the court speaks of the doctrine which applies to the duty of the street railroad company to provide places at its termini, —in the language of the court" This exception sufficiently indicated to the trial judge the proposition of law to which it referred, which, in varying phraseology, but with substantial identity, ran through the whole of the judicial instruction to the jury. The doctrine thus challenged was that: "When the passenger has reached the end of the route, so far as the railroad company proposes to carry that passenger, and where he must get off, then it is the duty of the railroad company to provide a safe place for him to get off." In other parte of the charge the jury was told that: "If that place where they put a passenger off, by their own act for their own purposes, is unsafe or dangerous, either from latent defects, which could be discovered by looking for them, on the part of the company, or from actual defects or dangers in the street then that is negligence for which they are chargeable, because the passenger getting off at that place has a right to presume that it is a perfectly safe place to get off, otherwise the company would not put him off there." "It is the duty of the company in that case to have' the whole place in proper shape, not only where the passenger alights from the car, but until he gets to a place of safety." "So, in this case, whether you find that tie plaintiff got off at a place where there was an excavation, or whether you find that she got off at a place where there was no excavation, if you find, under the evidence, by reason of anything there of a dangerous or obstructive character she was injured, that is a fact from which you may find such negligence as will entitle her to recover." Numerous assignments of error challenge the correctness of these statements of law.

The citations from the charge show that the jury was instructed that the plaintiff could recover if the place selected by the defendant for...