McNiff v. Boston Elevated Ry. Co.

• Decision Date: 10 December 1919
• Citation: 234 Mass. 252,125 N.E. 391
• Parties: McNIFF v. BOSTON ELEVATED RY. CO. (two cases). SAME v. NEW ENGLAND MOTOR TRUCKING CO. (two cases).
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

234 Mass. 252

125 N.E. 391

McNIFF

v.BOSTON ELEVATED RY. CO. (two cases).

SAME

v.NEW ENGLAND MOTOR TRUCKING CO. (two cases).

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Suffolk.

Dec. 10, 1919.

Exceptions from Superior Court, Suffolk County; Christopher T. Callahan, Judge.

Actions of tort by Nellie McNiff and by John McNiff against the Boston Elevated Railway Company, and against the New England Motor Trucking Company. Directed verdicts for defendants, and plaintiffs except. Exceptions overruled.

Wilfred B. Keenan, of Boston, for plaintiffs.

John E. Hannigan and S. J. Coyle, both of Boston, for defendant Boston Elevated Ry. Co.

Blodgett, Jones, Burnham & Bingham, of Boston, for defendant New England Motor Trucking Co.

PER CURIAM.

These are actions of tort to recover damages suffered by a passenger seated within a trolley car of the Boston Elevated Railway Company, resulting from a collision between that car proceeding upon its track and a motor truck owned and controlled by the New England Motor Trucking Company. There was testimony tending to establish the fact of collision. The evidence bearing upon the cause of the collision came almost wholly from the female plaintiff, neither the motorman of the trolley car nor the driver of the motor truck being called as witnesses. She testified that after the collision she saw the auto truck ‘after it had bumped go up by us' ‘pretty fast’ by the left side of the car. She was unable to tell whether the cause of the sudden stopping of the trolley car was the application of brakes by the motorman or the impact of the collision. She did not know where the automobile truck was when the collision happened, whether it had got pretty well across the track, or where it was on the track when it happened. She did not see the truck strike against the car and did not see the truck at all before the jolt of the car. Whatever happened to her seemed to be the result of the truck striking against the front of the electric car. At the time of the collision the electric car was going at a medium rate of speed and was stopped quickly. In answer to interrogatories the Boston Elevated Railway Company described the accident as follows:

‘As the car was approachingRawson street an auto truck came out of said Rawson street at a fast rate of speed and came directly in front of the Elevated car.’ The electric car just before the time of the accident was going ‘about seven or eight miles an hour.’ The electric car was damaged as...