Reno v. St. Louis & Suburban Ry. Co.
Decision Date | 10 February 1904 |
Citation | 79 S.W. 464,180 Mo. 469 |
Court | Missouri Supreme Court |
Parties | RENO v. ST. LOUIS & SUBURBAN RY. CO. |
Appeal from St. Louis Circuit Court; D. D. Fisher, Judge.
Action by Mary Reno against the St. Louis & Suburban Railway Company. From a judgment in favor of plaintiff, defendant appeals. Reversed.
McKeighan & Watts and Robt. A. Holland, for appellant. Wm. M. Kinsey and A. R. Taylor, for respondent.
This is an action to recover damages for personal injuries, alleged in the petition to have been received by the plaintiff in consequence of the negligence of the defendant in running its street cars at a high and reckless rate of speed, and in excess of that allowed by the ordinances of the city of St. Louis, and without ringing the bell, sounding the gong, or giving any warning of the car's approach that ran over and injured plaintiff. The petition further charges that the defendant violated the city ordinances requiring those in control of the movement of the cars to keep a vigilant lookout for persons approaching the track upon which they were being operated, and to stop the cars in the shortest time and space possible upon discovering a person in a dangerous situation. The answer was a general denial and a plea of contributory negligence. The trial resulted in a verdict for the plaintiff for $4,000, from which defendant has appealed, and the case was sent to this court because the constitutionality of the three-fourths jury law was challenged by appellant, and had not, when this case was heard, been passed upon by this court.
This accident occurred about half past 9 o'clock on the evening of November 12, 1899, as plaintiff attempted to walk in a diagonal direction across Wash street, between Fourteenth and Fifteenth streets, in the city of St. Louis, at a point a short distance west of the west crossing of Atchison Place and Wash street. As this appeal will be determined upon the question of the propriety of the court's action in submitting plaintiff's case to the consideration of the jury, we will give in full the testimony of the plaintiff as same is presented in appellant's abstract of the testimony, and as supplemented in respondent's additional abstract of the testimony filed in this cause.
Appellant's abstract of plaintiff's testimony is as follows:
Plaintiff's testimony, as found in respondent's additional abstract of the record, is as follows:
Mrs. Nelson, a witness called by plaintiff, testified that she saw the car that ran over and injured the plaintiff on the occasion in question, and that no signal of its approach was given, except just as the car approached the Fifteenth street crossing, when the bell or gong was sounded, but that after the crossing was reached and passed, and until plaintiff was struck, no warning or danger signal of any kind whatever was given by the parties in charge of the car. She also says that she saw plaintiff while she was walking eastwardly on the south sidewalk on Wash street, and as she left the sidewalk and started across Wash street in a diagonal direction to the northeast, and that plaintiff did not slow up or slacken her pace at any time after she stepped from the sidewalk to the street until she was struck by defendant's east-bound car, just as she was in the act of stepping upon the track, and that her gait was quite brisk for one of her age. To use witness' exact language upon this point:
According to this witness the plaintiff left the sidewalk and started across the street 150 or 160 feet east of the southeast corner of Wash and Fifteenth streets. This witness also testified that she, like the plaintiff, was wanting to cross to the north side of Wash street to reach her point of destination, and although still east 50 feet or more down Wash street from where plaintiff left the sidewalk she says that she maintained her position on the sidewalk in order that defendant's east-bound car, which she had both seen and heard, might pass before she would attempt to cross the street. This witness also says that the car was being run at the rate of 15 miles per hour when it struck the plaintiff; that she did not notice that its speed was slackened in the least until...
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