Roden v. Connecticut Co.

• Decision Date: 14 July 1931
• Citation: 113 Conn. 408,155 A. 721
• Court: Connecticut Supreme Court
• Parties: RODEN v. CONNECTICUT CO. et al.

155 A. 721

113 Conn. 408

RODEN v. CONNECTICUT CO. et al.

Supreme Court of Errors of Connecticut.

July 14, 1931

Appeal from Superior Court, Hartford County; Edward M. Yeomans Judge.

Action by John Roden against the Connecticut Company and another to recover damages for personal injuries, alleged to have been caused by the defendants negligence, tried to the jury. Verdict and judgment for the plaintiff, and appeal by the named defendant.

No error.

Joseph F. Berry, of Hartford, for appellant.

Frederick B. Hungerford, Morris D. Saxe, and Harold J Eisenberg, all of New Britain, for appellee.

Argued before MALTBIE, C.J., and HAINES, HINMAN, BANKS, and AVERY JJ.

MALTBIE, C.J.

This action was brought against the appellant, the Connecticut Company, and another defendant and resulted in a verdict and judgment against both, from which the Connecticut Company has appealed. We shall hereafter refer to it as the defendant. The plaintiff, a boy 7 years old, rode as a passenger in a bus of the defendant from New Britain to the end of its run on Farmington avenue. The street was macadamized to about this point, and then became a dirt road. When the bus reached the end of its run, the driver drove it toward the left side of the road, so that at least a part of it was upon the shoulder of the roadway. The only door in the bus used by passengers was upon its right side; that is, as it stopped, on the side toward the macadam. The driver opened the door, and the plaintiff descended the steps to the macadam of the roadway, to go to his home on the opposite side of the street. He was struck by an automobile truck proceeding in the same direction as the bus, and received the injuries for which he sought a recovery in this action.

The duty of a common carrier of passengers includes an obligation to furnish them a safe place in which to alight, as far as that place is provided by it or is affected or conditioned by the movement of the vehicle, and that duty is only satisfied if it exercises the highest degree of care and skill which reasonably may be expected of intelligent and prudent persons engaged in such a business, in view of the instrumentalities employed and the dangers naturally to be apprehended. St. John v. Connecticut Co., 103 Conn. 641, 644, 131 A. 396; Belledeau v. Connecticut Co., 110 Conn. 625, 627, 149 A. 127. An automobile bus is able to move or stop in the street at the will of its driver, and the safety of the place he offers its passengers to alight may be affected or conditioned by the passing traffic. Cleveland-Akron-Canton Bus Co. v. Walker, 30 Ohio App. 411, 165 N.E. 373. The care to be exercised toward a young child traveling by himself must be proportioned to the degree of danger inherent in his youth and inexperience. Brennan v. Fair Haven & W. R. Co., 45 Conn. 284, 298, 29 Am.Rep. 679; Rohloff v. Fair Haven & W. R. Co., 76 Conn. 689, 694, 58 A. 5; Boland v. Connecticut Co., 83 Conn. 456, 457, 76 A. 1005. When, however, the duty of the carrier to provide a safe place to alight has been fulfilled and the passenger has left the vehicle, it ceases to owe to him any duty other than that which it owes to any person coming within the range of its activities, not to do him injury by a failure to exercise reasonable care. Powers v. Connecticut Co., 82 Conn. 665, 669, 74 A. 931, 26 L.R.A. (N. S.) 405.

Taking the evidence in its most favorable aspect to the plaintiff, as we must do, the jury might reasonably have found the following facts: There was no reason why the bus might not have been stopped upon the right-hand side of the street, so that the plaintiff could have alighted upon the grass at the side of the road, or might not have discharged its passengers at one side or the other of a street which intersects Farmington avenue close to the point where the bus stopped and which was generally used by busses ending their run at this point to turn around. The bus stopped with the wheels of one side upon the macadam and those of the other upon the shoulder of the road. The highway curved just before the place where the bus stopped, in such a way that the view of any one on that side of the street was much restricted; indeed, standing on the edge of the macadam, one could not see automobiles approaching until they were about two hundred feet away. The step of the bus is inset in such a way that a view to the rear by any one alighting is somewhat obstructed by the side of the vehicle. There is no evidence as to the amount of traffic upon the street, but the fact that it was macadamized at the place of the accident might reasonably be taken to indicate considerable passing of vehicles and certainly the possibility of automobiles approaching and passing the bus when it stopped was present. As the bus came to a stop, an automobile truck and another car were approaching from the rear, one proceeding upon its right side of the road and the other a little to the rear and more to its left, both coming fast and apparently racing. When the bus stopped, the truck was quite close to it; one witness putting the distance at twenty to twenty-five feet. The driver of the bus gave no warning to the plaintiff as he alighted, and so far as appears took no precaution to see if any vehicles were approaching so near as to be likely to run into him. The automobile truck struck the plaintiff and caused him serious injury. It is true that the plaintiff testified that before he put his foot upon the step of the bus he leaned out, looked both ways and saw no vehicles approaching and that he had proceeded almost across the roadway before he was struck; and the evidence placed his body after the accident as lying on or a little beyond the edge of the macadam upon the side of the street opposite the bus. But he was rendered unconscious by the accident and remained so for some days, and, considering this fact and his youth, the jury might have concluded, as an inference from the evidence in regard to the position and speed of the approaching automobiles, that his testimony could not be accepted in these respects, Kanopka v. Kanopka, 113 Conn. 30, 154, A. 144; and they might reasonably have concluded that the position of the body was due to its being thrown by the force of the collision. They could have found that the plaintiff was struck almost as soon as he reached the street.

In St. John v. Connecticut Co., 103 Conn. 641, 646, 131 A. 396, we held that it is not ordinarily the duty of the motorman upon a trolley car to warn passengers alighting in the street of the danger likely to arise from approaching automobiles. Whether that rule would apply in its full scope to the driver of a bus who, by stopping it and opening the door, invites a 7 year old boy to alight in the traveled portion of a paved highway, we have no occasion to consider. In the instant case the driver had abundant opportunity to let the plaintiff out at the side of the road, off the highway, in a place of safety. Yet, instead of doing so, he chose to invite him to alight upon the macadam of the street at a time when the jury might have found that the automobiles were approaching in such a way as to endanger him as he stepped upon the pavement and when, had the driver looked with any care to the rear, he must have seen them. Especially in view of the age of the plaintiff, the conclusion of the jury that the defendant failed to exercise that high degree of care which it owed to him as a passenger was an entirely reasonable one.

The defendant's breach of duty was in failing to use proper care in this respect. As we have said, the jury might have found that the...