Redigan v. Boston & M.R. Co.
| Citation | 28 N.E. 1133,155 Mass. 44 |
| Parties | REDIGAN v. BOSTON & M.R. Co. |
| Decision Date | 25 November 1891 |
| Court | United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts |
Thos.
G. Kent and Geo. T. Dewey, for plaintiff.
Frank P. Goulding, for defendant.
The railroad station at which the accident happened is so situated that its grounds upon the west and south are contiguous to public streets, Prescott street on the west and Lincoln square on the south. The grounds are uninclosed and their surface is of substantially the same level and appearance with the streets, so that no line of demarcation is apparent. The station building is surrounded by a platform elevated one step above the ground, and the platform continues southerly along-side the railroad track to the street. In the other direction the platform is distant at its north-west corner about 25 feet from the easterly line of the other street. The surface of the station grounds between the streets and the platform was in a suitable condition for public travel, and was very much used by teams and foot-passengers in going to and from the station, and in traveling across the station grounds from one street to the other. There was no sidewalk or other defined footpath on the east side of Prescott street next the station grounds, but there was a brick sidewalk on the west side of Prescott street extending to Lincoln square. There was a path trodden by foot-passengers extending diagonally across Precott street and the northerly portion of the open station grounds towards the north-west corner of the platform. The route by this path and the platform on the west and south sides of the station building and thence southerly by the platform next the tracks between the northerly part of Prescott street and the square at the end of the platform, was a hundred or more feet shorter than that by the public streets. A large number of persons, not passengers or having business at the station, went over the platform daily in passing by this short cut from one street to the other. There was no evidence whether the defendant made any attempt to prevent this travel, and none that it permitted it, except that it existed in fact. There was also evidence that many people went over the platform on the east side of the station, and some along or between the railroad tracks, when going to Lincoln square from points northerly of the station. The plaintiff, for seven weeks previous to the accident, had walked over the platform twice daily each way, in going between her home and the place where she worked. On the night of the accident she was walking home from the shop by her usual route, leaving the shop at 6 o'clock with two other working girls. It was very dark. They walked on the sidewalk on the west side of Prescott street until they came to the footpath. Then walked over the path across Prescott street and the station grounds to the north end of the platform, and then a short distance along the platform on the west side of the station, when she fell into a hole or opening which she did not before know of and did not see, and so was injured. The opening into which she fell was made by the raising of a trap-door, which formed part of the platform, and which opened upon stone steps leading to the cellar of the station building. The trap-door had been open for an hour or more before the accident, and the opening was not guarded by any barrier or light, and there was no person in charge of it nor other warning. The plaintiff knew that this was a railroad passenger station, had seen teams drive up to the platform to get passengers and trunks, and had been to this and other passenger stations constructed in a similar manner with platforms on the outside. The question is whether, upon the facts shown, the plaintiff was entitled to go to the jury, a verdict for the defendant having been ordered in the superior court.
It cannot be said, as matter of law, that the plaintiff was a trespasser. She knew that the place where she was traveling was not a public way, but the platform of a railroad passenger station. She was not a passenger of the railroad and had no business to do at the station, but was merely using the station grounds and platform as a short cut to facilitate her passage home. Whether her act was or was not a trespass depends upon the attitude of the defendant towards her and those who were accustomed to use the station in a similar...
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