Martin v. Ga. Power Co

• Decision Date: 28 September 1932
• Docket Number: No. 21797.,21797.
• Citation: 45 Ga.App. 799,165 S.E. 880
• Parties: MARTIN. v. GEORGIA POWER CO.
• Court: Georgia Court of Appeals

45 Ga.App. 799

165 S.E. 880

MARTIN.

v.GEORGIA POWER CO.

No. 21797.

Court of Appeals of Georgia,

Division No. 2.

Sept 28, 1932.

Syllabus by Editorial Staff.

Error from Superior Court, Bibb County; Malcolm D. Jones, Judge.

Action by Mamie Martin against the Georgia Power Company. Judgment for defendant, and plaintiff brings certiorari.

Affirmed.

Hallie B. Bell and Julian P. Urquhart, both of Macon, for plaintiff in error.

Ellis & Fowler and B. J. Fowler, all of Macon, for defendant in error.

PER CURIAM.

1. "It is the duty of a street car company to select a reasonably safe place for landing passengers wherever it may stop a car for that purpose. The duty which the law imposes upon an ordinary railroad company to provide and maintain a safe place for landing its passengers has no application to a street car company operating its line along a public street or road, but the duty imposed upon such a company is, as stated, to select a reasonably safe place for landing its passengers, and to make such selection with reference to getting off the car while the same is at rest. The company is not responsible for any peril which the passenger incurs, without its fault, after the stoppage has terminated, and the passenger has secured a safe footing upon the street." Macon Railway Co. v. Vining, 120 Ga. 511, 513, 48 S. E. 232, 233; Augusta Ry. Co. v. Glover, 92 Ga. 133 (10), 18 S. E. 400. See, also, Bird v. Savannah Electric Co., 16 Ga. App. 453, 85 S. E. 621.

2. In the instant case the petition alleged that the plaintiff, "while in the act of alighting from the street car, or immediately after she had reached the ground, '' was struck by an automobile running at a high and reckless rate of speed, "to-wit, twenty five or thirty miles per hour, " which was undertaking to pass a standing street car, that stopped at a regular stop for the purpose of discharging the plaintiff, as passenger, at her destination; the automobile undertaking to pass it upon the right-hand side, upon which the plaintiff had alighted. The allegation of the petition, being in the alternative, must be construed most strongly against the pleader, and as alleging, therefore, that the plaintiff was struck by the automobile immediately after she had alighted from the street car, and after she had obtained safe footing upon the ground. Baggett v. Edwards, 126 Ga. 463 (1), 55 S. E. 250. Accordingly, under the ruling in Jernigan v. Georgia Railway & Power Co., 31 Ga. App. 273, 120 S. E. 439, the petition failed to set forth a cause of action, and was properly dismissed on demurrer. If, as alleged by the petition, the automobile ap proached the street car at a "high and reckless rate of speed, to wit, twenty-five to thirty miles per hour"--that is, construing the allegation against the pleader, at a rate of speed of forty-four feet per second-- knowing, as we must, that bringing the car to a stop and permitting the plaintiff to alight therefrom to the ground, even though she was standing on the platform at the nearest point of egress at the time the car stopped, must necessarily have consumed at least about three or four seconds, the automobile must have been at least about 150 feet from the street car at the time the car was stopped, and must have been at least 100 feet from the street car at the time the plaintiff commenced to alight therefrom. As we see it, no matter how many operatives the defendant company may have had on its car, it could not have had any reason...