Rotheli v. Chicago Transit Authority

• Decision Date: 23 November 1955
• Docket Number: No. 33606,33606
• Citation: 130 N.E.2d 172,7 Ill.2d 172
• Parties: Theodore ROTHELI, Appellant, v. CHICAGO TRANSIT AUTHORITY, Appellee.
• Court: Illinois Supreme Court

Page 172

130 N.E.2d 172

7 Ill.2d 172

Theodore ROTHELI, Appellant, v. CHICAGO TRANSIT AUTHORITY, Appellee.

No. 33606.

Supreme Court of Illinois.

Nov. 23, 1955.

David P. Krasner, Chicago (Charles Wolff and Charles T. Shanner, Chicago, of counsel), for appellant.

Thomas C. Strachan, Jr., Arthur Donovan, and Paul Denvir, Chicago, for appellee.

MAXWELL, Justice.

From an adverse verdict and judgment rendered in the superior court of Cook County, plaintiff, Theodore Rotheli, appealed to the First District Appellate Court. After affirming the lower court judgment, the Appellate Court granted plaintiff a certificate of importance and plaintiff now appeals to this court urging reversal and remandment of the cause.

Plaintiff's action for damages is based upon injuries sustained by him as the alleged result of being thrown from a bus operated by the defendant, Chicago Transit Authority, a municipal corporation, in the city of Chicago as plaintiff was alighting from the bus. The complaint alleges plaintiff was a passenger for hire and while in the exercise of due care for his own safety was injured as the direct result of defendant's negligent operation of its bus by starting it violently and suddenly while plaintiff was alighting.

Plaintiff's case relied chiefly upon his own testimony as an occurrence witness. He stated that on the evening in question he boarded defendant's trolley bus, paid his fare and took a seat behind the driver. He rode to a certain intersection where he intended to take one of defendant's street cars for the purpose of taking him to his home. The Appellate Court opinion, 5 Ill.App.2d 190, 125 N.E.2d 283, stated plaintiff had received his transfer. Although the record is silent as to plaintiff's possession of a transfer, for the purpose of this opinion we shall assume same to be the fact. Plaintiff stated that when alighting from the bus he had his right foot on the 'ground' and the other on the bus step when the doors closed striking his left shoulder. He further stated that at the same time the bus started with a quick and sudden jerk causing him to fall to the ground, and while in such position the front wheel of the bus ran over his feet.

At the time of trial the bus driver was no longer in the employ of defendant. His testimony, corroborated by two of the passengers, directly contradicted plaintiff's testimony. Defendant's evidence was to the effect that the bus had come to a complete stop at the intersection; that there was no space beween the exit doors of the bus and the curb of the sidewalk; that plaintiff stepped from the bus onto the sidewalk while the traffic light was red; that when the traffic signal turned green the bus door was closed and the bus motion was resumed, at which time plaintiff was standing on the sidewalk facing north about 2 or 3 feet south of the bus door. After plaintiff was struck the bus traveled 5 or 6 feet.

Plaintiff now urges here that because he was a transferring passenger for hire at the time of his injury, the trial court committed reversible error in the giving of instruction No. 16, and that the Appellate Court should have reversed and remanded the cause because of such error. In all, 28 instructions were given by the court; five were at the request of plaintiff, two were given by the court, three were given at the request of both plaintiff and defendant, and 18 were given at the request of defendant. The complained-of instruction is as follows:

'You are instructed that if you find from the evidence that the plaintiff had fully alighted from the defendant's bus and had reached a place of safety before he was injured, the relationship of passenger and carrier ceased to exist between defendant and plaintiff. Then you are instructed as a matter of law under these circumstances, the operator of the bus in question was only required to exercise toward the plaintiff ordinary care, and ordinary care is such that a person of ordinary prudence would exercise under the same and similar circumstances.'

After a thorough examination of the record in this case, it appears difficult to perceive any prejudice arising out of the giving of the above defendant's instruction in view of the fact that plaintiff's theory of recovery during the trial of this case was that he was injured while alighting from the bus, that certain portions of his body were still upon the conveyance, and that he was hurled to the ground by reason of being struck by the bus doors and the simultaneous quick and sudden starting of the bus.

Instruction No. 15, given at plaintiff's request, was as follows:

'If you believe from the evidence and under the instructions of the Court that the plaintiff had not yet fully alighted from the bus in question at the time and place in question while said bus was standing still, then you must find that the plaintiff was still a passenger of the defendant, and it became and was the duty of the defendant to exercise the highest degree of care reasonably consistent with the mode of conveyance adopted and used by the defendant and the practical operation of said bus line to stop said bus a reasonable length of time to permit the plaintiff in the exercise of ordinary care, to alight from said bus safely and not to start said bus within such reasonable time.'

This last instruction is in line with plaintiff's pleading and evidence that defendant's negligence, alleged to have caused his injury, was activated when plaintiff had not yet fully alighted. Under the record of this case, we hold that instruction No. 16 was not prejudicial. A judgment will not be reversed for error unless it appears such error affected the outcome in the trial. Lindroth v. Walgreen Co., 407 Ill....