Katamay v. Chicago Transit Authority

• Decision Date: 20 September 1972
• Docket Number: No. 44642,44642
• Citation: 289 N.E.2d 623,53 Ill.2d 27
• Parties: Eleanora KATAMAY, Appellant, v. CHICAGO TRANSIT AUTHORITY, Appellee.
• Court: Illinois Supreme Court

Page 623

289 N.E.2d 623

53 Ill.2d 27

Eleanora KATAMAY, Appellant, v. CHICAGO TRANSIT AUTHORITY, Appellee.

No. 44642.

Supreme Court of Illinois.

Sept. 20, 1972.

Rehearing Denied Nov. 29, 1972.

Arthur L. Pollman, Chicago (Philip J. McGuire, Chicago, of counsel), for appellant.

James G. O'Donohue, O. R. Hamlink, Jerome F. Dixon and Harry I. Parsons, Chicago, for appellee.

GOLDENHERSH, Justice.

The circuit court of Cook County entered judgment upon a jury verdict in the amount of $27,500 in favor of plaintiff, Eleanora Katamay, and against the defendant, Chicago Transit Authority. Defendant appealed and the appellate court reversed the judgment and remanded the cause to the circuit court with directions to enter judgment for defendant notwithstanding the verdict in favor of plaintiff (Ill.App., 273 N.E.2d 510). We allowed plaintiff's petition for leave to appeal. The facts are sufficiently stated in the opinion of the appellate court and we need only state here that plaintiff was standing on defendant's elevated platform waiting to board defendant's train; defendant's train stopped at the platform, its doors were opened, several people boarded, and that as plaintiff started toward the train she fell; her shoes were off her feet and the heels were wedged in the spaces between the wooden planks of the platform. The appellate court stated that Davis v. South Side Elevated R.R. Co., 292 Ill. 378, 127 N.E. 66, was dispositive of the issue, held that plaintiff, as a matter of law, was not a passenger at the time of her injury, and defendant, therefore, did not owe her the highest degree of care; that it owed her the duty of ordinary care but that no breach of that duty was shown for the reason that plaintiff's evidence failed to show that defendant had either actual or constructive notice of the condition which caused her to fall.

Plaintiff contends that the question of whether she was a passenger at the time of the fall which caused her injuries was one of fact for the jury, that the jury, under proper instructions, decided it favorably to her, and that the appellate court erred in holding, as a matter of law, that she was not a passenger at that time.

Defendant contends that 'The law is well established in this state that a party does not have the status of a passenger unless he is injured while in the actual process of boarding a train.'

Although the appellate court correctly stated the principle enunciated in Davis, we do not agree that it is dispositive of the question presented in this case. In Davis, the plaintiff had alighted from the train, had passed through the station and at the time of her injury was on the stairs leading down to the street. Here, the plaintiff was injured while approaching, with the intention to board it, defendant's elevated train which was standing at the platform with its doors open for the purpose of receiving passengers. In Davis, the court carefully distinguished the fact situation there presented from the cases in which 'the accidents happened in boarding or alighting from trains * * *.' 292 Ill. 378, at 373, 127 N.E. 66, at 68.

The passenger to whom the carrier owes the duty to exercise the highest degree of care is one who is in the act of boarding, is upon, or is in the act of alighting from, the carrier's vehicle. (See Illinois Pattern Jury Instructions--Civil (2d ed. 1971), No. 100.09.) We are not persuaded that, to come within this definition a passenger, of necessity, must have come into actual contact with the vehicle. This court has said that the rationale for the imposition of the duty upon a carrier to exercise the highest degree of care for the safety of an individual while he is a passenger as distinguished from the lesser duty owed at all other times is that the degree of care should be commensurate with the danger to which the passenger is subjected, and the degree of care required to be exercised increases as the danger increases. Sims v. Chicago Transit Authority, 4 Ill.2d 60, 122 N.E. 221.

In Chicago Terminal Transfer R.R. Co. v. Schmelling, 197 Ill. 619, at page 629, 64 N.E. 714, at page 717, the court said, 'The duty of a carrier to its passengers is, not only to exercise the highest degree of care and prudence in carrying them to their destinations, but also to afford them reasonable opportunities to leave the trains of the company with safety. (Citations.) The relation of carrier and passenger does not terminate until the passenger has alighted from the train and left the place where passengers are discharged, and the duty of the barrier to its passenger continues until the passenger has had a reasonable time in which to leave the depot or alighting place. What is such reasonable time must often depend upon the circumstances of the particular case. 4 Elliott on Railroads, § 1592. In Pennsylvania Co. v. McCaffrey, Supra, we said (173 Ill. 169, p. 173, 173 Ill., p. 714, 50 N.E. 713): 'This relation between a passenger and a railroad company does not cease upon the arrival of a train at the place of the passenger's destination, but the company is still bound to furnish him an opportunity to safely...