Holland v. Boston & M.R.R.

• Decision Date: 23 May 1932
• Citation: 279 Mass. 342,181 N.E. 217
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court
• Parties: HOLLAND v. BOSTON & M. R. R.

279 Mass. 342

181 N.E. 217

HOLLAND

v.BOSTON & M. R. R.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Suffolk.

May 23, 1932.

Exceptions from Superior Court, Suffolk County; Morton, Judge.

Action by Mary A. Holland, administratrix, against the Boston & Maine Railroad to recover for negligently causing death of plaintiff's intestate. Defendant's motion for directed verdict was granted, and plaintiff brings exceptions.

Overruled.F. M. Carroll and D. J. Murphy, both of Boston, for plaintiff.

F. P. Garland and J. De Courcy, both of Boston, for defendant.

RUGG, C. J.

This is an action of tort to recover compensation for causing the death of the plaintiff's intestate. There was evidence tending to show that on December 6, 1930, the plaintiff's intestate purchased of the defendant in Boston a ticket for transportation to Laconia, New Hampshire, and that he boarded a train in Boston at half past four in the afternoon of that day for that destination. The material evidence was that the train consisted of seven cars, five of which were passenger cars and none of which was a Pullman car. The passenger cars were described by the defendant in answer to interrogatories as vestibule cars, ‘the outside platforms at the ends of the cars were equipped with vestibules which were so constructed that it was possible to close in the platforms on the sides by lowering the hinged traps provided for covering the steps leading from either side of the platform to the ground and by closing the doors set flush with the outside walls of the cars to cover the openings remaining in the sides of the vestibules over the lowered traps. In order to permit passengers to board and to alight from the cars these doors were first opened back flat against the ends of the cars and then the traps covering the steps were lifted and folded back against said doors.’ The train crew consisted of three brakemen and two conductors. The plaintiff's intestate was traveling alone, the last witness who saw him alive being his widow who accompanied him to the train in Boston. At 6:30 p. m. on the same day the body of the plaintiff's intestate was found dead between two main line tracks of the defendant railroad about a mile south of the station of the defendant at Concord, New Hampshire. Evidence admitted without exception tended to show that he ‘evidently fell or stepped off the train * * * as he was on his way to Laconia, N. H. * * * He sustained fracture of cervical vertebrae.’ A passenger who boarded the train at Manchester, New Hampshire, did not see the plaintiff's intestate but testified that ‘one of the trainmen called out, ‘Concord Station next,’ as they were approaching Concord, that shortly afterwards the train came to a stop with a sudden and violent jerk, and that the place where the train stopped was about one and one-half miles from the Concord Station. It was then about six o'clock and ‘pitch dark.” A rule of the defendant was introduced in evidence to the effect that trainmen after leaving stations should announce the name of the next station at which the train would stop, and that when a train was about to stop at a station the name of the station should be called twice from within the car; if the train makes an unusual stop they must be careful not to announce the station and if there is any movement of passengers toward the car platform they must say ‘This is not the station stop.’ At the close of the evidence the defendant's motion for a directed verdict in its favor was allowed and the plaintiff's exceptions bring the case here.

The accident manifestly happened in the state of New Hampshire. The...