Ray v. Chicago & N.W. Ry. Co.

• Decision Date: 13 January 1914
• Citation: 144 N.W. 1018,163 Iowa 430
• Parties: AMY RAY v. CHICAGO & NORTH WESTERN RAILWAY COMPANY, Appellant
• Court: Iowa Supreme Court

144 N.W. 1018

163 Iowa 430

AMY RAY v. CHICAGO & NORTH WESTERN RAILWAY COMPANY, Appellant

Supreme Court of Iowa, Des Moines

January 13, 1914

Appeal from Jones District Court.--HON. F. O. ELLISON, Judge.

ACTION for damages resulted in a judgment against defendant, from which it appeals.

Affirmed.

Clifford B. Paul, James C. Davis, George E. Hise, and Henry L. Adams for appellant.

Jamison Smyth & Gorman, for appellee.

LADD C. J. WEAVER, C. J., and EVANS and PRESTON, JJ., concur.

OPINION

LADD, C. J.

The plaintiff boarded defendant's westbound passenger car at Maquoketa between 6 and 7 o'clock in the afternoon of September 8, 1911, and arrived at Anamosa after dark. What happened is best explained by her:

I was sitting in the rear end of the car, and went to the west end to get off. I followed the others, and I was the last one off. I went out on the platform, walked out easy, walking careful, and started to get down. The brakeman took hold of my right hand and took hold with a jerk. As soon as he took hold I lost my balance, my feet went from under me, and I fell. It jerked the pocketbook out of my hand. The brakeman took hold and dragged me out, straight down. Pocketbook dropped down, my feet went out from under me, and I dropped, went down, struck my back, and went on my knees. Up to the time he took hold of my hand and gave me the jerk, I had not lost my balance and had not stumbled. Nothing occurred to cause me to lose my balance, except the jerk he gave me, and when I fell I struck my back on the car steps.

A bystander corroborated this story, but the brakeman swore that no one fell in getting off, and other trainmen knew nothing of the occurrence. The charge of negligence is that the employee carelessly and negligently assisted plaintiff to alight.

As contended by appellant, the carrier, if proper facilities are afforded for safely alighting, is not ordinarily required to furnish assistance in so doing. "The contract of the carrier is that he will carry the passenger safely and in a proper carriage and afford him convenient and safe means for entering and alighting from the vehicle in which he carries him, but he does not contract to render him personal service or attention beyond that." Raben v. Railway, 74 Iowa 732. See McGovern v. Railway, 136 Iowa 13.

As plaintiff was laboring under no disability, and the means of entering and leaving the car were not claimed to have been unsafe, the brakeman might have allowed plaintiff to pass therefrom to the depot platform without aid, but, having undertaken to help her, he was bound to exercise the degree of care for her safety which the carrier owed her until she ceased to be a passenger.

As there was no delay, the relation of carrier and passenger did not terminate until she had alighted from the train and had left the platform. Section 1592, Elliott on Railroads; section 1016, Hutchinson, Carriers.

From the time of becoming a passenger until that relation ceased, the defendant was required to exercise the highest degree of care for her safety and protection consistent with the practical operations of its road as a common carrier. Dieckmann v. Railway, 145 Iowa 250; Moore v. Railway, 69 Iowa 491; Fetter, Carriers of Passengers, section 55 et seq. "It is the duty of the company to provide for the safe receiving and discharge of passengers. It is bound to exercise the strictest of vigilance not only in carrying them to their destination but also in setting them down safely, if human care and foresight can do so." Railroad Co. v. Buck, 96 Ind. 346 (49 Am. Rep. 168).

This duty extends to guarding against injury from strangers as well as from its own employees. Section 1093, 1094 Hutchinson on Carriers; Fetters on Carriers of Passengers, section 365. It is not so important, then, to inquire whether the brakeman was acting within the scope of his particular duties as to ascertain whether there was any lapse by reason of what he did on the part of defendant from the degree of care exacted. Kissing the plaintiff in Craker v. Railway Co., 36 Wis. 657 (17 Am. Rep. 504), was not within the scope of the conductor's employment, but the court denounced the act as a breach of the carrier's contract "to protect against all the world." In affording protection and carrying safely, the officers...