Rice v. Puget Sound Traction, Light & Power Co.

• Decision Date: 06 June 1914
• Docket Number: 11717.
• Citation: 141 P. 191,80 Wash. 47
• Court: Washington Supreme Court
• Parties: RICE v. PUGET SOUND TRACTION, LIGHT & POWER CO.

141 P. 191

80 Wash. 47

RICE v. PUGET SOUND TRACTION, LIGHT & POWER CO.

No. 11717.

Supreme Court of Washington

June 6, 1914

Department 2. Appeal from Superior Court, King County; Mitchell Gilliam Judge.

Action by Charles H. Rice against the Puget Sound Traction, Light &amp Power Company. Judgment for plaintiff, and defendant appeals. Affirmed on condition.

Jas. B Howe and H. S. Elliott, both of Seattle, for appellant.

Arthur E. Griffin, of Seattle, and W. H. Harris, for respondent.

FULLERTON J.

The appellant owns and operates a system of street railways in the city of Seattle. The respondent was injured by the sudden stopping of one of the appellant's cars while a passenger thereon, and brought this action to recover in damages for the injury so received. At the trial the jury returned a verdict in the respondent's favor in the sum of $4,000, on which judgment was entered. This appeal followed.

The accident occurred on the Third avenue line of the appellant. There is a doubletrack line on this street which crosses the James street cable line at James street. The cars whichever way moving stop to receive and discharge passengers just prior to crossing James street. The car on which the respondent was injured stopped at the usual stopping place, and the respondent with a number of other persons entered it. The respondent had theretofore received an injury to his knee and was walking with crutches. After he entered the car and before he had reached a vacant seat, the car was started on the signal of the conductor. He continued on his way, and just as he reached a seat and was about to enter it the car was stopped by the application of the emergency brakes. As a result he fell to the floor of the car.

There was evidence on the part of the appellant, to which there was little if any contradiction, to the effect that a car of the appellant had stopped on the other side of James street, and that, just as the front of the car on which the respondent was riding reached the back of such standing car, two men stepped out from behind the standing car and onto the track of the moving car, and that the stopping of the moving car by the application of the emergency brakes was necessary in order to avoid running them down.

The appellant first assigns error upon the refusal of the trial court of its motion for a directed verdict. It argues that, conceding it to be negligence on its part to start its car before the respondent had time to reach a seat, that such act did not cause the respondent to fall, and hence was not the proximate cause of the injury; that the proximate cause of the injury was the act of stopping the car in order to avoid running down the pedestrians who suddenly stepped in front of it; and that for this act it is not liable because it was called upon in an emergency to choose between two conflicting duties, and there is no evidence to show that it did not act as a reasonable and prudent carrier of passengers would have acted under the circumstances.

It is probably the rule that where a carrier of passengers is confronted with a situation, not of its own making, where it is compelled to choose between the conflicting duties of avoiding injury to its passengers or injury to some stranger who has inadvertently placed himself in a dangerous situation with reference to the instrument of carriage, that it is not liable for the injury to either the one or the other if it acts as a reasonably prudent person should have acted under the circumstances. But we think the facts shown here do not present the condition suggested. Contrary to the contention of the appellant, we think a street car company operating its cars in a crowded and populous city is bound to anticipate that it may be called upon to stop its cars suddenly at any time, and is bound to anticipate that such sudden stopping may cause injury to its aged, crippled, and otherwise infirm passengers, who have not had time to become properly seated before the starting of the car. This being the rule, it must follow that, in a case where an...