Redhing v. Cent. R. Co. of N.J.

• Decision Date: 02 March 1903
• Parties: REDHING v. CENTRAL R. CO. OF NEW JERSEY.
• Court: New Jersey Supreme Court

54 A. 431

68 N.J.L. 641

REDHING

v. CENTRAL R. CO. OF NEW JERSEY.

Court of Errors and Appeals of New Jersey.

March 2, 1903.

(Syllabus by the Court.)

Error to Supreme Court.

Action by Thomas Redhing against the Central Railroad Company of New Jersey. Judgment for plaintiff, and defendant brings error. Affirmed.

William A. Barkalow and Sherrerd Depue, for plaintiff in error.

Joseph E. Strieker and Alan H. Strong, for defendant in error.

DIXON, J. At the Roselle Station of the New Jersey Central Railroad there are six tracks lying south of the main station and ticket office, and in this case they are numbered from 1 to 6, beginning at the south. Tracks Nos. 1 and 3 are used by trains going east, tracks Nos. 2 and 4 by trains going west, track No. 5 is a switch track, and track No. 6 is used by a local train made up at Roselle to go east. About 6 o'clock in the evening of November 14, 1900, the plaintiff went to the station, intending to return by that road to his home in Perth Amboy, and having an excursion ticket for Elizabethport. On reaching the station he became engaged in a business conversation, after which he got a time-table, and ascertained, either by that or by information from a friend, that his train would soon be in. It is not clear whether the train he had in mind was one leaving at 6:15, which starts west of Roselle and arrives there on track No. 3, or one leaving at 6:34, which is made up in the yard just west of Roselle Station and comes in on track No. 6, but probably it was the latter. The plaintiff had no knowledge as to what tracks were used by the several trains. At about 6:33 he was waiting at the station for his train, when he saw a train approaching from the west. As it approached, he noticed it slackening speed, and when "the engine was just opposite to him, going very slow—very nearly stopped, but not quite," he proceeded to cross the intervening tracks, and was struck on track No. 6 by the engine of the 6:34 train. Under the evidence there is room for doubt as to whether the approaching train was the 6:15 train behind time, or an express train on track No. 1, due to pass through Roselle at 6:32, but not to stop.

The foregoing statement indicates the case as contended for by the plaintiff, and, as it has some support in the evidence, we must on this writ of error deem it true.

On behalf of the defendant it is insisted that the plaintiff should have been nonsuited, or a verdict against him should have been directed, because there was no evidence of breach of duty on the part of the defendant, and because the plaintiff was indisputably guilty of negligence in attempting to cross the tracks before the approaching train had fully stopped, and without looking up or down the tracks to be crossed. These reasons may be considered together, as they seem to be in some degree correlative.

It is the settled rule in this state that, when the position of the station and tracks of a railroad company is such that passengers about to take or leave a train standing at the station must cross intervening tracks, it is negligence in the company to run cars over those tracks, and that it is a question for the jury whether a passenger who attempts to cross those tracks without looking for approaching cars is guilty of negligence. Jewett v. Klein, 27 N.J.Eq. 550; Atlantic City R. R. Co. v. Goodin, 62 N.J.Law, 394, 42 Atl. 333, 45 L. R. A. 671, 72 Am. St. Rep. 652; section 56, Cent Law Journ. 41. Is this rule applicable to the case of a passenger who starts to cross intervening tracks when the train which he intends to take has not actually stopped, but is partly at the station, and moving so slowly as to indicate to prudent people that it is about to stop to receive passengers? An affirmative answer to this question was given by the language of Mr. Justice Dalrymple, speaking for this court in Jewett v. Klein, where he said of the passenger: "He was not bound to look to see whether another train was approaching, or wait, before crossing the easterly track, till the passenger train had come to a full stop." The rule, with this modification, was directly applied in Terry v. Jewett, 78 N. Y. 338, where the passenger, without having looked for danger, was walking diagonally across an intervening track to take an approaching train. To the same effect is also Kohler v. Pennsylvania R. R. Co., 135 Pa. 346, 19 Atl. 1049, where it was held that "it was not necessarily negligent for the passenger to start for his train before it had come to a full stop. Whether or not the slowing up of the train, and the other circumstances, justified the plaintiff in crossing the track when and as he did, was not sufficiently clear to be decided against him as a question of law."

Considering these cases as...