Petrie v. Kaufmann & Baer Co.

Citation139 A. 878,291 Pa. 211
PartiesPETRIE v. KAUFMANN & BAER CO.
Decision Date28 November 1927
CourtUnited States State Supreme Court of Pennsylvania
139 A. 878
291 Pa. 211

PETRIE
v.
KAUFMANN & BAER CO.

Supreme Court of Pennsylvania.

Nov. 28, 1927.


139 A. 879

Appeal from Court of Common Pleas, Allegheny County; Harry H. Rowand, Jr., Judge.

Action by lone Petrie against the Kaufmann & Baer Company. Judgment for plaintiff, and defendant appeals. Affirmed.

Argued before MOSCHZISKER, C. J., and FRAZER, WALLING, KEPHART, SADLER, and SCHAFFER, JJ.

Robert D. Dalzell (of Dalzell, Fisher & Dalzell), of Pittsburgh, for appellant.

R. A. Hitchens, of Pittsburgh, for appellee.

WALLING, J. This action of trespass is for personal injuries plaintiff suffered by a fall on an escalator while, as a patron in defendant's store, she was being conveyed from one floor to another. This appeal by defendant is from judgment entered on a verdict for plaintiff, and the record presents no reversible error. Defendant has a large department store on Smith field street, Pittsburgh, occupying several floors of the building and, among other conveniences for its patrons and employees, has escalators, in the nature of moving stairways, on which people stand and are carried from one elevation to another. Plaintiff's evidence, corroborated by two disinterested witnesses, was that on March 3, 1925, while a customer in the store, she stepped on an escalator to pass from the fifth to the fourth floor and had been carried about one-third of the distance when the escalator momentarily stopped and then started forward with such a sudden and violent jerk as to throw her down, causing her head and body to strike forcibly against the moving stairway by which she was seriously and permanently injured. The other witnesses testify to the stop and sudden violent forward jerk, by which they came near being thrown; also, as to plaintiff's fall and to some extent as to her injuries. Defendant's inspector, whose attention was not called to the accident until the time of the trial two years later, testified that he made the usual hourly inspection and found nothing wrong and knew of no cause for the stop and sudden jerk complained of. Under the evidence the case was for the jury.

As an escalator and an elevator perform the like service of conveying people from one elevation to another, they are subject to like duties and responsibilities. The passenger is at least as powerless to influence the action of the former as the latter. Hence the rule that an elevator is deemed a common carrier applies equally to an escalator. While a carrier is not an...

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