Miller v. Boston & M.R.R.

• Decision Date: 03 March 1922
• Citation: Miller v. Boston & M.R.R., 240 Mass. 461, 134 N.E. 368 (Mass. 1922)
• Court: Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts
• Parties: MILLER v. BOSTON & M. R. R.

240 Mass. 461

134 N.E. 368

MILLER

v.BOSTON & M. R. R.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Suffolk.

March 3, 1922.

Exceptions from Superior Court, Suffolk County; Franklin G. Fessenden, Judge.

Action of tort by Louis Miller against the Boston & Maine Railroad, for personal injuries alleged to have been sustained when he was crowded off the platform of defendant's car while attempting to alight. Verdict for defendant, and plaintiff brings exceptions. Exceptions overruled.

It was plaintiff's contention that the gates were open on each side of the platform, and that he was pushed off on the wrong side by the crowd and injured, and that he became dazed or unconscious, and in that condition went in front of another train and was badly injured. The exceptions were to the exclusion of hypothetical questions asked an expert, with a view to showing that plaintiff received or might have received a concussion of the brain from the fall from the platform.

James H. Vahey and Philip Mansfield, both of Boston, for plaintiff.

Henry F. Hurlburt and Albert W. Rockwood, both of Boston, for defendant.

DE COURCY, J.

This action was brought to recover for personal injuries received by the plaintiff on August 29, 1917, while he was in the North Station in Boston. The jury returned a verdict for the defendant. The case is before this court on the plaintiff's exceptions to the exclusion of certain questions put to his medical expert, Dr. Howard A Lothrop.

In order to consider the questions of law raised it is necessary to state briefly the material facts, as they could have been found by the jury on the evidence before them at the time when the expert was called. Miller boarded the 6:05 train (which was train No. 60), at Ayer, entered the fourth car from the engine, and remained standing near the rear door, because of the crowded condition of the car and platform. The train came into the North Station of track No. 11 and stopped with its engine about 2 1/2 car lengths from the bunter; the intervening space being partly occupied by two empty passenger cars. The tracks in the station are straight, and run approximately north and south. Those numbered 11 and 12 are 7.3 feet apart; and there is a platform to the east of track 11 (separating it from No. 10), and another platform to the west of track 12 (separating it from No. 13). As soon as the train stopped the outgoing passengers began to push one another; the gates on both sides of the platform were open, and the plaintiff was pushed and fell down on the wrong (or track) side. He received a cut on the left side of his face; got up on his knees, and shifted his bag from the left hand to the right. He then put his left hand up to his face, saw the blood, and (in his own words) ‘I lost my memory; I lost my mind altogether.’ The next thing he remembered, which was on the following morning, he was in the hospital.

The testimony of other witnesses called by the plaintiff tended to show that when train No. 60 came to a stop on track 11, a switching engine was backing in a freight or express car on track 12; that a man resembling the plaintiff crossed in front of the engine on track 11 and ‘walked straight over in front of this car,’ that was being moved on track 12. A night clerk at the hospital testified that the plaintiff told him he had not fallen off the car, but had got off, and ‘was crossing this track and was struck by this engine.’ The plaintiff was found lying seemingly in the place where he had been run over.

The claim of the plaintiff was that he was thrown to the ground from the rear platform of the fourth car, and received a blow upon the head; that as a result thereof he wandered in an unconscious and dazed condition a distance of several hundred feet,...