Ponton v. United Elect. Rys. Co., 7824.

• Decision Date: 30 June 1938
• Docket Number: No. 7824.,7824.
• Citation: 200 A. 425
• Parties: PONTON v. UNITED ELECTRIC RYS. CO.
• Court: Rhode Island Supreme Court

200 A. 425

PONTON

v. UNITED ELECTRIC RYS. CO.

No. 7824.

Supreme Court of Rhode Island.

June 30, 1938.

Exceptions from Superior Court, Providence and Bristol Counties; Alberic A. Archambault, Judge.

Action of trespass on the case for negligence by Loretta Ponton against the United Electric Railways Company to recover for injuries sustained by the plaintiff in a fail as she was alighting from one of the defendant's electric cars. A verdict was directed for the defendant, and the plaintiff brings an exception.

Exception overruled, and case remitted for entry of judgment on the verdict as directed.

Charles J. McCabe, Cooney & Kiernan, and James H. Hagan, Jr., all of Providence, for plaintiff. Clifford Whipple and Earl A. Sweeney, both of Providence, for defendant.

BAKER, Justice.

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In this action of trespass on the case for negligence, which was tried to a jury in the superior court, the trial justice directed a verdict for the defendant at the conclusion of all the evidence. The case is before us on the plaintiff's exception to this ruling, all her other exceptions being waived.

The accident in question happened soon after 11 o'clock, p. m., on December 15, 1933, as the plaintiff was leaving a one-man electric car, so called, of the defendant company, at the corner of Mineral Spring avenue and Charles street in the town of North Providence. At the time the weather and road conditions were very bad. A meteorologist from the Providence office of the United States weather bureau testified that on that day there was a light rain and sleet about noontime, and a steady rain soon after 3 p. m. until midnight, the temperature being always below freezing; that the rain of the afternoon and evening froze as it fell, and formed a coating of ice about one-eighth of an inch thick on everything which was exposed to the weather. The plaintiff herself admitted that the rain froze as it fell; that it was icy everywhere and that it was one of the slipperiest days she could remember.

It appears from the testimony of the plaintiff, who was about twenty-eight years old, that, after an evening in Providence, she boarded a car of the defendant company at Exchange Place in that city to go to her home on Mineral Spring avenue. When she reached her destination the car stopped, the outside doors were opened, and at least one other woman got off the car ahead of her. After the plaintiff had inserted her fare in the receiver provided for that purpose, she turned, stepped over to take hold of the upright pole or stanchion near the step of the car, and immediately, before she was able to do this, slid or slipped off the edge of the vestibule into the street, sustaining the injuries of which she complains. At this time the car was stationary and there was no evidence that any sudden stopping or starting thereof caused the plaintiff to fall.

Two young men, who were standing on the sidewalk near where the car stopped, were witnesses for the plaintiff. The first one testified that, while he was watching the automobiles sliding about on the icy roadway in trying to make the grade on Charles street at that point, his attention was directed to the accident by a woman's scream; that he immediately crossed the street to where the plaintiff was lying on the ground; that the front door of the car was open and that he then "saw ice on the step that folds down." The second young man, who was standing on the sidewalk about ten feet from where the car stopped, testified that the plaintiff had "slipped from the platform and struck her foot on the step."

The defendant produced as witnesses all the men who had operated the car in question from the time it was taken from the car barn on the morning of the day of the accident until it was returned to the car barn at the end of that day. It appears from their testimony that there were no doors between the body of the car and the vestibule; that the heat in the car was turned on at all times; that the temperature in the vestibule while the outside doors were closed is practically the same...