Hathaway v. New York, N.H. & H.R. Co.
| Decision Date | 25 November 1902 |
| Citation | 182 Mass. 286,65 N.E. 387 |
| Parties | HATHAWAY v. NEW YORK, N.H. & H. R. CO. |
| Court | United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court |
A. Edwin Clarke and A. B. C.ollins, for plaintiff.
Frederick S. Hall, for defendant.
The plaintiff was required, by the contract under which the horses were brought over the railroad, to unload them from the car. This involved his entering the freight yard and going to the place in it where the horses were to be taken from the car. There was a public street at the south end of the yard, and a gate gave access to the yard from the street. In the yard were three freight houses, extending northerly, the ends of which were contiguous. On the westerly sides of the houses were platforms designed and used for the transfer of goods between the houses and cars. These platforms were of unequal widths, those upon the side of the farther houses being narrower than the platform of the first house. The plaintiff entered the yard through the gate, and went to the office in the house nearest the street, and there paid the freight bill. He then asked the night watchman if he was going out to deliver the horses and, receiving an affirmative answer, said, 'Well, come on,' to which the watchman replied, 'Well, you go ahead out there, and I will be out in a few moments.' This was in the night, and the plaintiff had no lantern. The car was upon the tracks and beyond the freight houses. The plaintiff passed from the office into the first house, and instead of walking through the houses, went through an open door upon the platform, and walked down the platform toward the place where he expected to get the horses. The platform upon which he first came from the door was about twice as wide as those further along. There was evidence tending to show that the freight house from which he went upon the platform was so filled with merchandise that he could not walk through it, but this evidence was contradicted. The platforms were not well lighted, and the plaintiff, in attempting to follow them, walked off the side at a point beyond the jog, and fell. The negligence charged was a failure to light the platform at the point where it was narrowed up. The plaintiff often had been at the freight yard, and knew its general arrangement, but testified that he never had had its attention called to the narrowness of the platform. He usually went through the freight houses when going to receive horses, and would have done so that night but for finding them full of goods. We are of opinion that the verdict for the defendant was ordered rightly. The platform was not a way provided by the defendant for persons to go to cars in the yard, nor was it held out by the defendant to be such a way. It was made and fitted for another purpose, namely, the transfer of goods to and from cars on the adjoining tracks. So, also, the freight houses through which the plaintiff had gone on previous occasions were not designed as a way to the yard, but for the reception, storage, and handling of goods, and filling a house with goods could not be said to be the obstruction of a way designed to give access to cars in the yard. If the plaintiff, being required to unload the horses, was entitled to have some reasonable method of access to the car containing them afforded him, and might have declined to attempt to find his way to the car in the dark and without a guide, he did not so decline. On the contrary, he voluntarily sought to find a way, and, when he found his approach through the houses obstructed by goods, he voluntarily chose as a way a series of platforms which he knew were made for the handling of goods, and which...
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