Haley v. St. Louis Transit Co.

• Decision Date: 23 December 1903
• Citation: 179 Mo. 30,77 S.W. 731
• Parties: HALEY v. ST. LOUIS TRANSIT CO.
• Court: Missouri Supreme Court

77 S.W. 731

179 Mo. 30

HALEY v. ST. LOUIS TRANSIT CO.

Supreme Court of Missouri, Division No. 1.

December 23, 1903.

CARRIER OF PASSENGERS — STREET CAR COMPANY — NEGLIGENT CARRIAGE BEYOND DESTINATION — INJURY WHILE RETURNING — LIABILITY.

1. The act of a street car company in negligently carrying a passenger one block beyond her destination is not the proximate cause of an injury sustained by her from a fall on an icy sidewalk while returning to the point of original destination.

Appeal from St. Louis Circuit Court; W. B. Douglas, Judge.

Action by Fannie E. Haley against the St. Louis Transit Company. Judgment for defendant, and plaintiff appeals. Affirmed.

Lyon & Swarts and Chas. M. Polk, for appellant. Boyle, Priest & Lehmann and Geo. W. Easley, for respondent.

BRACE, P. J.

This in an action for damages for personal injuries sustained by the plaintiff in consequence of a fall upon a sidewalk in the city of St. Louis. The defendant objected to the introduction of any evidence under the petition on the ground that it did not state facts sufficient to constitute a cause of action. The objection was overruled, and evidence introduced by plaintiff, at the close of which the court, at the request of the defendant, instructed the jury "that under the pleadings and the evidence in this case the plaintiff is not entitled to recover, and your verdict must be for the defendant." Thereupon plaintiff took a nonsuit with leave, and thereafter, her motion to set the same aside, duly filed, having been overruled, she appealed, and assigns for error the giving of defendant's instruction in the nature of a demurrer to the evidence.

The case made by the plaintiff's evidence is substantially as follows: The plaintiff at the time of the injury was a dressmaker, 60 years of age, weighing 170 pounds, and resided at 1017 North Garrison avenue — the southwest corner of Garrison and Easton avenues. She was in perfect health, and, in the language of one of her witnesses, "was robust, tall, proud, well dressed, had style about her, and earned $2 a day making dresses." On the 30th of December, 1899, about 10 o'clock at night, the plaintiff boarded the west-bound Easton avenue car of the defendant at the crossing of Eighteenth street and Franklin avenue for the purpose of returning to her home at the southwest corner of Garrison and Easton avenues. As the car was approaching Garrison avenue, where she desired to alight, she pushed the button and rang the bell twice, once before the car reached the street next east of Garrison avenue, and again, when the car was a short distance east of Garrison avenue; but the car did not stop until it reached the next street — Cardinal avenue — one block west of Garrison avenue. When the car stopped she went to the door, "fussed" with the conductor, who was on the platform outside, for not stopping, got off the car on the north side, went to the north sidewalk of Easton avenue, and was walking east toward Garrison avenue and her home on that sidewalk, when she fell, and thereby sustained an intracapular fracture of the femur, or a broken bone of the neck of the hip. The injury is serious and permanent. It further appeared from the plaintiff's evidence that on the 30th of December, 1899, the maximum temperature in St. Louis was 13, the minimum 7, and that there was a half inch of snow on the ground that evening, and the weather clear; that the snow fell principally on December 27th, on which day the fall was 1.3 inches; that the snowstorm on the 27th of December was general throughout the city, and there was no snow fall after 10:35 a. m. of that day; that the maximum temperature on that day was 24 and the minimum 18, and on the 28th the maximum was 26 and the minimum 15, and on the 29th the maximum was 19 and the minimum 11. The evidence further tended to show that the night of the 30th of December, although clear, was dark; that there was more light at the Garrison avenue crossing than there was at the Cardinal avenue crossing; that the sidewalk on which plaintiff was walking was covered with snow and ice, was slippery, was shaded by trees growing thereon, and that the stores along it were all closed, and that such was the condition at the place where she fell, which was about half way between the two streets.

The evidence for the plaintiff made a prima facie case of negligence against the defendant, in that its servants failed to stop the car at Garrison avenue, in compliance with plaintiff's timely signal therefor, given in the manner and by the means provided by the defendant for that purpose, and the...