Ritchie v. Boston Elevated Ry. Co.

• Citation: 238 Mass. 473,131 N.E. 67
• Parties: RITCHIE v. BOSTON ELEVATED RY. CO.
• Decision Date: 26 May 1921
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

238 Mass. 473

131 N.E. 67

RITCHIE

v.BOSTON ELEVATED RY. CO.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Suffolk.

May 26, 1921.

Report from Superior Court, Suffolk County; Patrick M. Keating, Judge.

Action by Estelle A. Ritchie against the Boston Elevated Railway Company for personal injuries sustained in alighting from a street car. There was a verdict for plaintiff, but before it was recorded the court directed a verdict for defendant, and reported the case for determination by the Supreme Judicial Court. Judgment for defendant on the verdict.

Plaintiff's claim was that as she was alighting from a crowded car passengers behind her pushed against her and caused her to fall to the ground, and that the conductor kept saying, ‘Step lively; step lively.’Francis Burke, Thomas J. Kenny, and Joseph P. Bell, all of Boston, for plaintiff.

John T. Hughes, of Boston, for defendant.

CARROLL, J.

There was evidence that the plaintiff was injured while leaving a crowded car on which she was a passenger, at the Park Street subway station in Boston. As she reached the door at the rear end of the car, she took hold of the side rail with her right hand, ‘the force of the passengers behind me coming along * * * pushed me with such force I lost my grip on the rail and fell on the concrete pavement.’ The conductor was ‘at the rear of the car in his usual place,’ and ‘kept saying, ‘Step lively; step lively.”

It is settled law in this commonwealth that a street railway company is not at fault in failing to prevent passengers from crowding as they leave or enter its cars in the customary way. This is one of the incidents of such travel and it is not of itself evidence of negligence. When there is evidence of boisterous or disorderly conduct which should have been foreseen and guarded against, the jury may find the carrier to be negligent if it failed to prevent it; but there are no such facts in the case at bar. All that appears is that the passengers in their haste to leave the car, crowded against the plaintiff in such a manner that she fell to the ground. On these facts there was no evidence of the defendant's negligence to go to the jury. Seale v. Boston Elevated Railway, 214 Mass. 59, 100 N. E. 1020;MacGilvray v. Boston Elevated Railway, 229 Mass. 65,111 N. E. 166, 4 A. R. L. 283; Knowles v. Boston Elevated Railway, 233 Mass. 347, 123 N. E. 681, 5 A. L. R. 1255. See Moulton v. Boston Elevated Railway, 236 Mass. 234, 236, 127 N. E. 886. It was not negligent for...