Rivers v. Pa. R. Co.

• Decision Date: 20 June 1912
• Citation: 83 N.J.L. 513,83 A. 883
• Parties: RIVERS v. PENNSYLVANIA R. CO.
• Court: New Jersey Supreme Court

83 A. 883

83 N.J.L. 513

RIVERS

v. PENNSYLVANIA R. CO.

Court of Errors and Appeals of New Jersey.

June 20, 1912.

(Syllabus by the Court.)

Swayze, Parker, Vroom, and White, JJ., dissenting.

Error to Supreme Court.

Action by William J. Rivers against the Pennsylvania Railroad Company. From a judgment of the Supreme Court (80 N. J. Law, 217, 76 Atl. 455) reversing a judgment for plaintiff, he brings error. Reversed, and judgment of the circuit court affirmed.

Clarence Kelsey, of Jersey City, for plaintiff in error.

Vredenburgh, Wall & Carey, of Jersey City, for defendant in error.

TRENCHARD, J. The plaintiff below, William J. Rivers, brought this suit to recover damages for personal injuries sustained while a passenger on the defendant's train. The evidence at the trial justified the jury in finding, if they saw fit, the following matters of fact: The plaintiff at about 11 o'clock at night boarded an express train of the defendant company at its Newark station, to be carried to Jersey City. The train consisted of six cars, the four rear coaches being vestibuled. Rivers entered the car next to the last by the rear platform. He was unable to obtain a seat because they were all occupied, and so, with several other passengers, stood in the aisle. After the train had proceeded some distance from Newark, and was about four-fifths of a mile from the Jersey City terminal, its next and last stop, Rivers started to go into the next car for the purpose of obtaining a seat. As he stepped on the platform of the vestibule, which was not lighted, there was a sudden "jerk" of the train, and, as he endeavored to balance himself with his right foot, he stepped into space and plunged down the steps and fell upon the roadbed, because the trapdoor, which, when in place, covered the space over the steps, had been removed by an employÁe of the defendant company after the train left Newark. The suit was brought in the Hudson circuit, and resulted in a judgment for the plaintiff. The defendant took a writ of error to the Supreme Court, where such judgment was reversed (80 N. J. Law, 217, 76 Atl. 455), and this writ of error brings under review such judgment of the Supreme Court.

We are of opinion that the judgment in the circuit court should have been affirmed. The plaintiff's action was grounded upon the alleged negligence of the defendant company in leaving open the trapdoor at the time and place of the plaintiff's injury.

Generally speaking, the legal duty of the defendant is well settled. A common carrier of passengers must use a high degree of care to protect them from danger that foresight can anticipate.

By foresight is meant not foreknowledge absolute, nor that exactly such an accident as has happened was expected or apprehended, but rather that the characteristics of the accident are such that it can be classified among events that, without due care, are likely to occur, and that due care would prevent. Hansen v. North Jersey, St. R. Co., 64 N. J. Law, 686, 46 Atl. 718. As we have pointed out, the plaintiff complains that the defendant did not use that high degree of care required of it by law in respect to the condition of the vestibule.

Now a railroad company is under no legal obligation to provide vestibuled trains for its passengers, but, having done so, it is its duty to use reasonable care to maintain them in a safe condition.

And when such company has assumed to safeguard passengers using such vestibule, while the train is running between stations, by...