North Chicago St. R. Co. v. Kaspers
| Decision Date | 21 June 1900 |
| Citation | 57 N.E. 849,186 Ill. 246 |
| Parties | NORTH CHICAGO ST. R. CO. v. KASPERS. |
| Court | Illinois Supreme Court |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
Appeal from appellate court, First district.
Action by Lambert Kaspers against the North Chicago Street-Railroad Company. From a judgment in favor of plaintiff, affirmed in the appellate court (85 Ill. App. 316), defendant appeals. Affirmed.
John A. Rose and Louis Boisot, Jr. (W. W. Gurley, of counsel), for appellant.
Francis J. Woolley, for appellee.
On December 31, 1896, the appellee, Lambert Kaspers, who was then 14 years of age, was employed as a cash boy at the store of Marshall Field & Co., in Chicago, earning three dollars a week. He lived on Wolfram street, and was required to be at the store at 8 o'clock. On the morning of that day he took one of appellant's Lincoln avenue electric cars at the corner of Herndon, George, and Lincoln avenues, and became a passenger on appellant's street railway to the business part of the city, near the place of his employment. He paid his fare, and received a transfer ticket enabling him to ride from the end of the electric line on appellant's cable-car line the rest of the distance. He was carried to the end of the electric line at the corner of Lincoln, Wrightwood, and Sheffield avenues, and when he got off the car he saw a train of four cars, consisting of a grip car and three passenger cars, standing on Sheffield avenue, ready to start. He walked towards it, and when about 20 feet behind it it started. He ran up to the train, and ran alongside of it, past three cars, and attempted to climb on the front platform of the first car. He had got on the step at the front end of the car, and was stepping up on the front platform, when the speed of the train was increased, and he fell off, with the result that he received a fracture of the bones of the left leg above the ankle. He brought this suit to recover damages for his injury, alleging that he was in the exercise of ordinary care, and that he was injured by appellant's negligence in causing the train to be violently jerked and accelerated in speed, by means of which he was thrown to the ground. He recovered a judgment for $5,000 in the trial court, which was affirmed by the appellate court. The errors relied on for reversal are-First, the admission of evidence as to the conduct of conductors and passengers upon other trains at times previous to this accident; and, second, the giving of the instruction numbered 31.
The evidence established the following facts concerning the management of trains at the place of the accident: The cable cars start for down town from that corner every four minutes. The trains of cars come out of the car barns by means of a cable that runs through the barn, and the cars run upon what is called the ‘stand,’ and load in their passengers. The speed of this barn cable is about four and a half miles an hour. There is a separate cable which conveys the cars down town, and there is a vault about 20 feet long between the two. There is no rope in the vault, and the cars cross it by the momentum communicated to the train by the barn cable, and the down-town cable is picked up on the other side. When the trains start from the stand the gripman lets go of the barn cable about 15 feet north of the vault. The cars then run by their own momentum about 50 feet across the vault to about 15 feet south of it, where the downtown cable is picked up. Where the gripman takes hold of the new cable is called the ‘pick up,’ and the speed of that cable is nine miles an hour. It was at this place, where the gripman took hold of the new cable, that the train started at a faster rate, and the plaintiff fell off.
The evidence admitted over the objection of defendant was that at the place where plaintiff ran along the train and tried to get on the car passengers frequently ran and jumped on as the train was moving slowly, and that conductors received passengers in that way, and encouraged the practice, telling them to come on, and aiding them to get on. There was no claim of any willful injury to the plaintiff, and he was required...
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Va. Ry. & Power Co v. Dressler
...continue his journey in the caboose of the new train. There is no resemblance between this case and that of North Chicago Street Railroad Co. v. Raspers, 186 Ill. 246, 57 N. E. 849, except that the plaintiff had a transfer ticket. That ticket entitled him to ride on the cable car line to hi......
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Chicago City Ry. Co. v. Carroll
...of it, was a passenger on both lines of appellant while making a continuous journey to his destination. North Chicago Street Railroad Co. v. Kaspers, 186 Ill. 246, 57 N. E. 849. It is further said by appellant that there is nothing to show what caused the trolley pole to fall, or to show th......
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Feldman v. Chicago Rys. Co.
...of carrier and passenger continues throughout the necessary acts of such transfer. To the same effect is North Chicago Street Railroad Co. v. Kaspers, 186 Ill. 246, 57 N. E. 849. In that case the appellee had alighted from one street car, had crossed over the street, and was in the act of t......
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Chicago City Ry. Co. v. Lowitz
...to get on and alight from the cars at that point. If that was a fact, then under the rule laid down in North Chicago Street Railroad Co. v. Kaspers, 186 Ill. 246, 57 N. E. 849, it became appellant's duty to run its cars ‘in reference to the practice which it recognized and aided.’ We find n......