Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Chicago & St. Louis Railway Company v. Harris

• Decision Date: 18 May 1906
• Docket Number: 5,661
• Citation: 77 N.E. 1051,38 Ind.App. 77
• Court: Indiana Appellate Court
• Parties: PITTSBURGH, CINCINNATI, CHICAGO & ST. LOUIS RAILWAY COMPANY v. HARRIS

77 N.E. 1051

38 Ind.App. 77

PITTSBURGH, CINCINNATI, CHICAGO & ST. LOUIS RAILWAY COMPANY v. HARRIS

No. 5,661

Court of Appeals of Indiana

May 18, 1906

From Clark Circuit Court; William C. Utz, Special Judge.

Action by Lloyd Harris against the Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Chicago & St. Louis Railway Company. From a judgment for plaintiff, defendant appeals.

Reversed.

M. Z Stannard and Ward H. Watson, for appellant.

H. W Phipps and L. A. Douglass, for appellee.

OPINION

COMSTOCK, J.

This cause has been twice tried. This is the second appeal. The first trial resulted in a judgment for appellant in pursuance of a peremptory instruction in its favor. That judgment was reversed. This court held that the trial court erred in taking the case from the jury, and remanded the cause for a new trial. Harris v. Pittsburgh, etc., R. Co. (1904), 32 Ind.App. 600, 70 N.E. 407. The second trial resulted in a verdict and judgment in favor of appellee for $ 1,500.

The errors assigned are the action of the court in overruling appellant's motion for judgment on the answers to the interrogatories returned by the jury, notwithstanding the general verdict, and in overruling appellant's motion for a new trial.

The facts specially found at the last trial substantially agree with the statement of the evidence in the opinion on the first appeal. In that opinion it was held, under the facts proved, that the questions at issue should be submitted to the jury. The opinion makes a further statement of the facts and the pleadings unnecessary here. We find no irreconcilable conflict between the special findings and the general verdict, and the motion for judgment thereon was therefore properly overruled.

One of the causes stated in the motion for a new trial was the giving of certain instructions to the jury at the request of appellee.

"Instruction 1. I instruct you that it is the duty of a railway company engaged in carrying passengers to exercise the highest degree of care consistent with the operation of its railroad, in providing reasonably safe means for passengers to enter and depart from their cars and depot; and the passenger, in using a platform in order to enter or depart from the train, has the right to presume that the same is reasonably safe, and he can only be charged with negligence when the defect, if any is such as would naturally suggest to one of common understanding that it is dangerous, and such as to place one in peril who uses the same."

"Instruction 4. A carrier of passengers is held to the highest degree of care, skill and diligence while engaged in carrying, taking aboard or discharging passengers from its trains and premises, and it is liable for the slightest...