Oddy v. West End St. Ry. Co.

• Decision Date: 29 March 1901
• Citation: Oddy v. West End St. Ry. Co., 178 Mass. 341, 59 N. E. 1026 (Mass. 1901)
• Parties: ODDY v. WEST END ST. RY. CO. (two cases).
• Court: Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts

178 Mass. 341

59 N.E. 1026

ODDY v. WEST END ST. RY. CO. (two cases).

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Suffolk.

March 29, 1901

COUNSEL

H. E. Boles and Olcott O. Partridge, for plaintiffs.

M. F Dickinson, Jr., and Walter Bates Farr, for defendant.

OPINION

BARKER J.

These actions are on account of injuries received by a passenger as she was leaving a street car, by her coming into collision with a hose cart rapidly passing in the street. The car was upon one of two parallel sets of tracks, and its rear platform was furnished with gates, the one on the side next the other track being closed. The car stopped to receive and deliver passengers only at designated points. After it had passed the last stopping place before that at which the passenger intended to leave, the conductor opened the door from the rear platform put his head into the car, and called out the name of the next stopping place. The passenger thereupon gave him a signal, which indicated that she wished to leave the car at the stopping place the name of which had just been called, and saw that the conductor appreciated her signal. Presently, the car slowed up and stopped. As it was slowing up, the plaintiff rose from her seat, and walked to the rear door, reaching the platform as the car came to a standstill, and then going down the steps, and placing herself in the street, either stepping into the wheel of a rapidly passing hose cart, as one eyewitness who was also a passenger upon the car testified, or being struck by the hose cart as she was leaving the car. The car had not in fact arrived at the stopping place the name of which had been called by the conductor, nor was it in fact stopped in consequence of any order of signal given by the conductor, nor for the purpose of delivering or receiving passengers, but was stopped by the motorman because he saw approaching a fire engine and a hose cart, which were being run to a fire, and were coming towards the car at a high rate of speed, in the direction opposite to that in which the car was moving. This stoppage was in accordance with a reasonable practice, in order to avoid collisions between moving cars and fire apparatus driven at high rates of speed. In this instance the hose cart approached upon the same tracks on which the car was. When near the car, the cart turned to the left, and came very near the car. The fire engine passed first, upon the other side, but with a very short interval of time. When the car began to slow up, the conductor, being on the rear platform, ascertained that the fire apparatus was approaching. He looked over the closed gate, and saw the engine pass, and he continued to look in the same direction to ascertain when the hose cart should have passed. He did not see the passenger as she came from the car to the platform, nor until his attention was called to the other side by the passing of the hose cart, when he saw her on the ground. The passenger did not know that there was an alarm of fire, or that fire apparatus was approaching, and the jury might infer that, when she rose as the car was slowing up, she supposed that it was preparing to stop at the stopping place the name of which had been called out. She testified that she heard the sound of a gong as she was getting up and walking towards the platform, but that she thought it was a car coming in the opposite direction, and that she had never before been on a car when it stopped to let fire apparatus go by. The time was 8 o'clock on the evening of January 7, 1897. The passenger was 52 years of age, and there is no contention that she was not in full possession of her mental and bodily powers.

At the close of the evidence, Mr. Justice Blodgett ordered verdicts for the defendant, counsel agreeing that, if this court should hold that the plaintiffs were entitled to go to the jury, judgment should be entered for the passenger in the sum of $2,400, without costs, and for her husband in the sum of $100, without costs. The cases are here upon the report of the presiding justice, which purports to state all of the material testimony. The passenger herself testified that...