Magee v. New York, N.H. & H.R. Co.
| Decision Date | 01 April 1907 |
| Citation | 195 Mass. 111,80 N.E. 689 |
| Parties | MAGEE v. NEW YORK, N.H. & H. R. CO. |
| Court | United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court |
Alfred Hemenway and J. Weston Allen, for plaintiff.
Choate Hall & Stewart, for defendant.
The only question raised by this report is whether there was sufficient evidence of the negligence of the defendant to warrant a submission to the jury. The case is a close one but in view of all the circumstances it cannot be said that there was not. A passenger seated in a railroad train has a right to expect transportation without bodily injury. To put the proposition conversely, it is the duty of a common carrier of passengers to carry those whom it accepts for carriage so that they shall not suffer physical harm, unless in the exercise of the highest degree of care and skill consistent with the transaction of its business, this becomes impossible by reason of unforeseen conditions. When the plaintiff entered into the contract with the defendant to carry her from New York to Boston, and took her place in the seat provided, she was entitled to safe carriage under ordinary conditions. While the train was running at an 'extra rate of speed' it comes to a sudden stop within the space of a few feet, and the plaintiff is thrown forward from her seat, and injures her knee against the chair in front. There is some evidence that she is insensible for a brief time. As soon as she observes anything, the passengers are gathered in groups, and all the male passengers get out of the car. In about five minutes a man in the railroad uniform requests of all the passengers to get out of the car. Complying with this request, she sees a crowd looking at the front of the car and several railroad men working there. A gentleman is pointing out to his little boy a bent bar of iron which was a part of the coupling apparatus which joins two cars together, and which was not in the position it should have been, and is commenting about the occurrence. As soon as she noticed the locomotive and baggage car they were some distance up the track. The car in which she was riding was taken out of the train. and a much older and dust-covered car was substituted. There was a shed or small station near by, but it was not a schedule stop of the train. This combination of circumstances, unexplained, warrants a conclusion that there was an irregularity, amounting to negligence, in the operation of the train where regularity was to have been expected. The plaintiff has told all that the ordinary woman passenger in like plight would be apt to know or have the opportunity to discover respecting the accident. Her...
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