Rigg v. Boston, R.B. & L.R. Co.

• Decision Date: 02 March 1893
• Parties: RIGG v. BOSTON, R.B. & L.R. CO.
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

158 Mass. 309

33 N.E. 512

RIGG v. BOSTON, R.B. & L.R. CO.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Suffolk.

March 2, 1893

Plaintiff was injured while walking from Oak Island to Crescent Beach.Defendant had built between these two points a long plank walk for visitors and others frequenting the beaches. The southerly end of the walk abutted on another short walk, running from a point one foot distant fromthe easterly rail of defendant's track to a bath house lying east of the first walk. There was a railing on each side of the first walk, and upon both sides of the short walk down to a point five feet and one half of an inch distant from the easterly rail of defendant's track, the railing of each walk uniting. The only convenient way of getting off the first walk was by passing from the first to and upon the second walk and off that end of the second walk which was next to the rails of defendant's track. People were accustomed to pass down the first walk, go upon the second walk, and cross over defendant's track to a station on the westerly side of same.

COUNSEL

William B. Orcutt and Edward J. Jenkins, for plaintiff.

Melvin O. Adams, for defendant.

OPINION

BARKER J.

If the plaintiff, while walking from Oak Island to Crescent Beach upon the defendant's land was not a mere licensee, his invitation was such as to make it incumbent on himself to keep out of the way of trains. The making for the use of visitors to the beach of a long plank walk, with railings on the side of the railroad next the sea was not an invitation to the exclusive use of any other part of the defendant's location, and gave visitors no right to expect that the track would not be used for the passage of trains. Assuming that, because the cross walk was on the defendant's land, and was connected with one end of the defendant's walk, it was an invitation to cross the track at that point, it held out no inducement that the crossing was free from danger. Those who were impliedly invited by its existence to cross the rails at that point were only invited to do so taking upon themselves the obvious risk of the use of the track for the moving of trains; and if the side rails of the cross walk were an invitation to stand within the space marked by them while awaiting the passage of a train they were not an invitation to stand with a portion of the person outside of that space, which is what the plaintiff's intestate did, while,...