Mcgrath v. American Express Co.
| Decision Date | 24 November 1914 |
| Citation | 106 N.E. 855,219 Mass. 314 |
| Parties | McGRATH v. AMERICAN EXPRESS CO. |
| Court | United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court |
Wm H. McSweeney, Morgan J. McSweeney, and Francis H. Caskin, all of Salem, for plaintiff.
Austin M. Pinkham, of Boston, for defendant.
The plaintiff alighted from a train of the Boston & Maine Railroad at its station in Salem, and while passing out of the station stumbled and fell over a pile of galvanized iron pipes or gutters, which were lying upon the station platform and received the injuries for which he brings this action.
He testified that he rode in the smoking car of the train and reached Salem at 10 minutes after 5 o'clock in the afternoon; that he left the car by the rear steps and walked along beside the train toward the forward end of it, and fell over the pile of pipes when on his way out of the station that these pipes were on the platform at a point opposite the centre of the smoking car, and the length of one car from the baggage car door; and that the pipes were lying parallel to the train and about three or four feet away from it.
He further testified that the pile was eight or ten feet long about six inches high, and a foot or two feet wide; that he walked 'on the edge of the crowd of passengers nearest the train'; and that
The plaintiff also testified that after the train went out of the station he talked with the station agent; that he (the station agent) told the expressmen, who were employés of the defendant, to take the pipes away; and that the expressmen then loaded the pipes or gutters onto a truck. Still later the plaintiff saw the pipes or gutters on an American Express wagon outside the station.
There was other evidence substantially corroborating the testimony of the plaintiff. It could not have been ruled that the plaintiff was not in the exercise of due care. This question was for the jury. The fact that at the time the plaintiff fell he did not look to see if there was any obstruction on the platform, but was looking straight ahead in the direction he and the other passengers were going, was not necessarily an act of carelessness on his part. Upon this and all the evidence the question of his due care was for the jury. The plaintiff was not obliged as matter of law to keep his eyes fixed upon the platform while he walked out of the station. Flynn v. Watertown, 173 Mass. 108, 53 N.E. 147; Murphy v. Armstrong Transfer Co., 167 Mass. 199, 45 N.E. 93.
If it be assumed that the defendant was authorized to unload its shipments from trains either directly onto the platform, or onto trucks, as should be most convenient, still such authorization would not excuse the defendant from liability if articles were negligently permitted by it to remain on the platform for an unreasonable length of time, in consequence of which a person rightfully passing over the platform, in the exercise of due care, was injured.
The defendant contends that there was no evidence to show how long this pile of pipes had remained upon the platform, and that therefore it cannot be charged with negligence....
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