Poole v. Consolidated St. Ry. Co.
| Decision Date | 22 May 1894 |
| Citation | 100 Mich. 379,59 N.W. 390 |
| Court | Michigan Supreme Court |
| Parties | POOLE v. CONSOLIDATED ST. RY. CO. |
Error to superior court of Grand Rapids; Edwin A. Burlingame Judge.
Action by Flora A. Poole against the Consolidated Street Railway Company. From a judgment for plaintiff, defendant appeals. Reversed.
Kingsley & Kleinhans, for appellant.
Wesselius Corbitt & Ewing, for appellee.
The defendant operates an electric street railroad in Grand Rapids, with a line extending to Reed's Lake, which is a summer resort a short distance east of the city. The company maintains pleasure grounds at this place, including a pavilion and conveniences for visitors. During the summer the travel over this route is very large. For the convenient transaction of its business, the company's double track is extended and formed into a loop at the Reed's Lake terminus, so that cars may run continuously, without reversing or switching, around this loop, and back to the city. Within this loop is vacant ground, and, on the side to the north, nearest the pavilion, cinders have been spread connecting with the walk and the pavilion, and forming an admittedly safe landing place. The accompanying sketch sufficiently shows the surroundings to indicate the situation.
On the evening of the 12th of April, 1892, the plaintiff, who had taken passage on one of defendant's cars, in attempting, after the car came to a stop, to alight inside, next the loop, received serious injuries. She brought this suit against the company, alleging that the defendant did not keep its grounds at Reed's Lake, at and adjacent to where said car stopped for passengers to leave the same, in such condition that passengers might alight with safety from said cars by night, but permitted said grounds to be and remain (Image Omitted)
in such a rough, broken, and uneven condition, and permitted a steep bank of earth, of the height of, to wit, six inches, to be and remain at and alongside of said railway at said terminus where said cars stopped for passengers to leave the same, so that passengers alighting from said cars were liable to be thrown down and injured; and alleging that the plaintiff, by reason of the unsafe condition of the grounds, was, without fault on her part, thrown down and caused to fall to the ground with great force and violence, and received the injury complained of. The plaintiff recovered a verdict for $5,000, and defendant brings error.
The defendant contends that upon the whole record it appears that the landing place provided on the northerly side of the track was suitable and proper, and known to the plaintiff to be so, and that she had no right to alight on the side of the car next the loop, and that, if she chose to do so, it was at her own risk; and it is further contended that the plaintiff's testimony, taken as a whole, failed to make it clear how the injury occurred, and also that the grounds inside the loop were a reasonably safe landing place. A number of other questions are raised, relating to rulings on the trial as to admissibility of testimony, refusal of requests to charge, preferred by counsel for the defendant, and the charge of the court on its own motion, which will be considered in order. The plaintiff's theory is that in attempting to leave the car she stood with both feet on the running board; that a gentleman who was aboard the car assisted her from the running board to the ground; that she clasped his hands in making her descent to the ground, and that, upon stepping down from the running board, she stepped upon the steep bank of earth, which the testimony shows to be somewhere from four to five inches high; that her foot slipped and gave way, and that she fell, and received the injuries in question. The defendant's theory as to the manner of her injury is that the true cause of her injury was not the uneven condition of the ground, but that it was occasioned by some person stepping upon the plaintiff's dress as she was alighting, thereby throwing her to the ground; and the defendant offered the testimony of numerous witnesses tending to sustain this theory.
It is strenuously insisted that, the company having provided a safe landing place on the northerly side of the loop, its full duty to the passengers was performed, and that it cannot be held liable for an injury occurring by reason of a passenger attempting to alight inside the loop. Upon this question the trial judge charged the jury as follows: "A street-railway company has the right to select and adhere to the making of their own arrangements for platforms and landing places at such resorts as Reed's Lake, provided only, that they make the landing place on one side safe and commodious, and so conspicuous that all passengers can see it by day or by night, unless it has been so used, and is so used, and the circumstances are such, in connection with the landing, as amounts to an invitation to alight on the other side;" and, further: "It is certain, under the testimony in this case, that the construction of that walk and landing, running from 30 feet wide down to 10 feet each way, and an extent of from 150 to 200 feet along this north side next to the resort, that it offers a plain and palpable invitation for the passengers upon its trains to get off upon that side; and I have no doubt that under the arrangements as testified to, and uncontradicted, in order for the company to be held as inviting an alighting upon the inside of the loop, that there must be, and should be, some positive act...
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