Railroad Company v. Aspell

Decision Date01 May 1854
PartiesRailroad Company versus Aspell.
CourtPennsylvania Supreme Court

W. Darlington, for plaintiff in error.—Whenever personal injury is concerned, the question is one of negligence: 2 Esp. N. P. Cases 533; 9 Bing. 457; 13 Wend. 626. In case of passengers, carriers are responsible for negligence: 13 Wend. 628. Negligence in the passenger bars any action by him. The party suing for injury occasioned by negligence should be wholly without fault: 19 Wend. 399; 21 Id. 615; 5 Barbour 337; 8 Id. 368; 11 Id. 112. In order to entitle a party to damages his negligence should not contribute to the injury: 13 Barbour 9; 12 Id. 494, Collins v. Albany, &c., Railroad Company; 14 Barb. 585; 8 Barr 482, Laing v. Calder.

If the announcement was made before the train reached Morgan's Corner, it was still contended that this announcement was not the immediate cause of the injury — and that to justify the passenger in leaving the body of the car on account of apprehended injury, there must be danger to life or limb in remaining in it: 13 Peters 181, Stokes v. Saltonstall.

Lewis, for defendant in error.—It was contended that it being in the night time, the passengers could not tell at what rate the train was moving, and that the circumstances showed such inattention to the safety of the passengers as amounted to negligence on the part of the agents of the company: cited Stokes v. Saltonstall, 13 Peters 181; Story on Bail, § 600. When the place was announced, it should also have been stated that the train would be stopped. After the defendants' negligence had caused circumstances of difficulty, it did not relieve the company to show that the plaintiff did not conduct himself with the circumspection which a person self-possessed would have exercised. Carriers are bound to exercise extreme care not only in the structure of the road, but in the arrangements necessary to the safety of passengers: 4 Cush. 402.

The opinion of the Court was delivered by BLACK, C. J.

The plaintiff below was a passenger in the defendants' cars from Philadelphia to Morgan's Corner. The train should have stopped at the latter place; but some defect in the bell-rope prevented the conductor from making the proper signal to the engineer, who, therefore, went past, though at a speed somewhat slackened on account of the switches which were there to be crossed. The plaintiff, seeing himself about to be carried on, jumped from the platform of the car and was seriously hurt in the foot. He brought this action; and the jury, with the approbation of the Court, gave him $1500 in damages.

Persons to whom the management of a railroad is intrusted, are bound to exercise the strictest vigilance. They must carry the passengers to their respective places of destination, and set them down safely, if human care and foresight can do it. They are responsible for every injury caused by defects in the road, the cars, or the engines, or by any species of negligence, however slight, which they or their agents may be guilty of. But they are answerable only for the direct and immediate consequences of errors committed by themselves. They are not insurers against the perils to which a passenger may expose himself by his own rashness or folly. One who inflicts a wound upon his own body, must abide the suffering and the loss, whether he does it in or out of a railroad car. It has been a rule of law from time immemorial, and is not likely to be changed in all time to come, that there can be no recovery for an injury caused by the mutual default of both parties. When it can be shown that it would not have happened, except for the culpable negligence of the party injured concurring with that of the other party, no action can be maintained. A railroad company is not liable to a passenger for an accident which the passenger might have prevented by ordinary attention to his own safety, even though the agents in charge of the train are also remiss in their duty.

From these principles, it follows very clearly that if a passenger is negligently carried beyond the station where he intended to stop and where he had a right to be let off, he can recover compensation for the inconvenience, the loss of time, and the labor of travelling back; because these are the direct consequences of the wrong done to him. But if he is foolhardy enough to jump off without waiting for the train to stop, he does it at his own risk, because this is gross imprudence, for which he can blame nobody but himself. If there be any man who does not know that such leaps are extremely dangerous, especially when taken in the dark, his friends should see that he does not travel by railroad.

It is true that a person is not chargeable with neglect of his own safety, when he exposes himself to one danger by trying to avoid another. In such a case, the author of the original peril is answerable for all that follows. On this principle we decided last year at Pittsburgh,...

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