Green v. Pennsylvania R. Co.

• Decision Date: 14 October 1887
• Citation: 36 F. 66
• Parties: GREEN et ux. v. PENNSYLVANIA R. CO. [1]
• Court: U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Pennsylvania

36 F. 66

GREEN et ux. v. PENNSYLVANIA R. CO. ^[1]

United States Circuit Court, E.D. Pennsylvania.

October 14, 1887

This is an action for damages for injuries alleged to have been received by Mrs. Anna M. Green, wife of Hiram Green, of Camden, N.J., on October 12, 1882, at East Moorestown station, upon the Pennsylvania Railroad in New Jersey. Mrs Green, then aged 23 years, married, and having one child had, upon the day of the accident, been to the fair at Mount Holly, and had returned to East Moorestown station, near which she then lived, upon a train on the Pennsylvania Railroad, arriving between 7 and 8 o'clock in the evening. The night was very dark and misty. She was accompanied by her little boy aged four or five years. Upon alighting at the station she found herself near the east end of the station building, and, wishing to take a stage from the station to her home at once, and without pausing on the platform, went, leading the child with her right hand, down a dark passage-way upon the east side of the station, in order to reach the rear of the building, where the stages usually stood, turned sharply to the right, and went along the rear of the station. About midway the rear of the station she fell into an opening constructed in the ground to form an entrance to the basement of the station. The uncontradicted evidence showed that the entrance-way was in the condition in which it had been originally constructed; that there was no light at the east end of the station, in the eastern passage, or in the rear of the station; that stages were usually to be found standing in the rear of the station outside a line of posts and that it was necessary to go along Chester avenue to go to Moorestown. The evidence was contradictory as to the existence of a railing along the top of the posts, and as to the use of the eastern passage by passengers. But upon this question the plaintiff testified as to herself that she had frequently, during the two years preceding the accident, arrived at this station after dark, and at other times, that she had never ridden home before, but had walked, going along the platform to Chester avenue, and thence home; she knew the stages stood behind the station, having seen them there from Chester avenue. She had never been in the rear of the station before. She had never gone down the eastern passage before, nor did she see other people do so at this time. She knew there was a water-butt upon the corner of the station, which was raised about 12 inches from the ground. She had seen this from the platform of the station upon previous occasions, and walked around it upon the night of the accident. The evidence upon the part of the defendant was decided that neither this passage-way nor this rear portion of the station were intended to be used by passengers, and that, if they were so used, it had no knowledge of such use. Mrs. Green, having turned the corner around the water-butt, proceeded along the line of the building, until she fell into the opening, bruising her knees and forehead. It was so dark she could not see the opening, of the existence of which she was ignorant. The stage which she wished to take was standing diagonally to the wall of the station building west of the opening; the horse attached to it being hitched to a post, with his head towards the hole, and with the rear of the stage towards Chester avenue. At the time of the accident Mrs. Green was a vestmaker; and evidence upon her behalf was produced to show that she was in good health, and free from organic or constitutional disease. In falling into this opening she received a wrench or jar which it was claimed produced Pott's disease of the spine, and caused her present condition. Upon the part of the defendant evidence was produced intended to show that she had a predisposition to this disease, which would naturally have resulted in her present condition, and that, had there been no such predisposition, her present condition could not have been caused by such a fall.

Verdict for plaintiff for $8,750, and motion for new trial overruled.

Wescott, Melick & Robbins, for plaintiff.

John Hampton Barnes and George Tucker Bispham, for defendant.

McKENNAN J., (charging jury.)

The plaintiff in this case seeks to recover damages for an injury alleged to have been sustained by falling into a hole, a passage-way, into a cellar under the defendant's station at East Moorestown, state of New Jersey. It appears that on the 12th of October, 1882, she visited the fair at Mount Holly, and returned on one of the defendant's trains to the station at East Moorestown, alighted from the cars very near or beyond the east end, as she alleges, of the station building. It was a dark night; very dark. She was accompanied by her little child, and she concluded to take a carriage from the station to her home. She passed down a pathway on the east end of the station in the direction of where she had seen carriages standing before, and in going to the usual place at which carriages were to be found, passing over the ground of the defendant, she fell into this passage-way, which was unfenced and unguarded, which she did not see; and that the injury of which she complained was thereby sustained.

It is obvious that the liability which she seeks to enforce against this company rests upon its alleged negligence in providing the necessary safe-guards against injury to persons who are passing along, as this woman was, from the platform of the station to a conveyance behind it; and it is necessary that that should be made apparent by the testimony as the first question to be established by the testimony on the part of the plaintiff. I do not propose to restate the testimony of the witnesses,-- you have heard such numbers before you,-- but simply to indicate the questions this case, and the principles of law by which you are to be governed in the determination of the cause, and to do it in the briefest possible manner.

What then, was the duty imposed by law on the railroad under the circumstances? I give that to you in the very concise language of Chief Justice DILLON, in the Case of the Chicago & N.W.R. Co., 26 Iowa, 124, that they are bound-- that is, the railroad company is bound-- to keep in a safe condition all portions of their platforms and approaches thereto to which the public do or would naturally resort, and all portions of their station grounds reasonably near to the platforms where passengers or those who have purchased tickets with a view to take passage on those cars would naturally or be liable to be. Was the course pursued by this woman, the direction which she took, the ground over which she passed, ordinarily used by passengers, coming to or going away from that station? If it was, then it was the duty of the railroad company to provide all such protection as was necessary to secure passengers going to and coming from that depot from liabilities to danger or injury. This passage-way or hole was entirely unguarded, and, as is evident from what occurred on this occasion, persons in passing that way were liable to fall into it. If it was, then, the course or pathway...