Ryan v. Manhattan Ry. Co.

• Decision Date: 15 April 1890
• Parties: RYAN v. MANHATTAN RY. CO.
• Court: New York Court of Appeals Court of Appeals

121 N.Y. 126

23 N.E. 1131

RYAN

v.MANHATTAN RY. CO.¹

Court of Appeals of New York.

April 15, 1890.

Appeal from supreme court, general term second department.

Action by Mary E. Ryan against the Manhattan Railway Company, to recover for personal injuries sustained by falling through the open space between a station platform on defendant's road and a car Defendant appeals. For former report see, 1 N. Y. Supp. 899.

RUGER, C. J., dissenting.

S. B. Rogers, for appellant.

I. N. Mills, for respondent.

FINCH, J.

The negligence charged in the complaint consisted in two omissions on the part of the defendant company: First, in failing to have a platform or entranceway to the car of sufficient or proper width; and, second, in ‘failing to carefully and prudently maintain and operate the said station platform, car and platform thereto, and the train to which said car was attached.’ No evidence was given as to the latter omission except as incidental to the first. It was claimed that the train might have been stopped at a different point relatively to the station, and so avoided an undue or improper opening between the station platform and the car platform; but the accusation rests upon the hypothesis that such improper opening in fact existed, and seeks only to show the absence of a necessity for it. The two allegations were, therefore, in fact one: That the defendant company left an improper and dangerous opening in the pathway of its passengers without any necessity therefor. In this respect the case differs radically from that of Boyce v. Railroad Co., ante, 304, (recently decided.) There no negligence was imputed to the company for the existence of the opening, but for leaving it unguarded and unlighted. Assuming that its existence was a necessity in the practical operation of the railroad, negligence was predicated of the omission to properly guard and light it. No such omission is charged in this case, but the negligence averred rests upon the existence of the opening itself as being wider than prudence permitted, or necessity required. Concededly some opening was necessary. The cars must not scrape the platform of the station, and must be far enough away to allow for the oscillation and swaying of the train. On a perfectly straight track three or four inches of separation would be all that necessity required, and as much as should be usually maintained. But a perfectly straight line cannot everywhere be constructed. The elevated roads traverse the streets of the city, and must reproduce their curves. The supporting pillars mainly follow the lines of the street curbing, so as to obstruct as little as possible the use and occupation of the roadway. Curves, therefore, are necessary, and their presence justifiable. No negligence can be founded upon their existence. The locality of the stations is determined by the public convenience. The fundamental law to which the elevated roads owe their existence required them to be sufficient and suitable to accommodate the public travel. They must not be too far apart or too few in number, and must ordinarily be placed at street crossings. There, only, do they gain sufficient room and light, and convenience of access. Such a station on the defendant's road is located at Grand street. There is no suggestion of impropriety or negligence in establishing it at that point, and the prudence of that location must be taken for granted. But the road at that street follows a curve, and the station platform necessarily must be made to conform, in order to secure a safe and convenient access to the train. It was made to conform to some extent, at least. But a new necessity thereupon became manifest. The body of a car forms an unbending straight line, and wherever there is a curve becomes the chord of an arc. If the outer line of the platform, following the curve of the track, as it should to bring all points as near as possible to the train, shows a convexity to the cars, any one of them in passing will have its center nearer to the station than one or both ends. If the car stops, and the center is within four inches of the platform, one or both ends will be further away, depending upon the character or degree of the curve. It follows, therefore, that where a station is located upon a curve, and is convex towards the train, which becomes a tangent, the closest approach reasonably possible of the center of the car will leave the ends further away; and in such case that distance and the consequent opening is inevitable,-a necessary result of the practical operation of the road,-and its presence, the bare fact of its existence, is not and cannot be deemed negligence. But, if the necessary opening is so wide at a given station as to exceed the ordinary and natural step of a passenger, it may become a source of danger, and require further precaution on the part of the company. The locality should be well lighted, so that the passenger can see what the opening is, and it was that omission which was a determining element in the Boyce Case. The question, therefore, presented by this action was whether the opening into which plaintiff stepped was or was not wider than was necessary, and so much so as to produce danger to the passengers.

It was uncontradicted that the track and that platform at Grand street had been unchanged for six years, with a single exception. At one time wider passenger-cars were substituted for those in use. The increase was about six inches, or three inches on each side. That increase required a corresponding cutting away of the station platforms to enable the new cars to pass, and the fact shows that the old cars ran so close at some points as to make three inches more of width in the cars strike the platforms. For a time the old cars were used in connection with the new, and, to make them correspond, metal plates were put upon the car platforms, widening them the added three inches on each side so that the opening which they left remained as before. What the cars gained in width the platforms lost, and the openings remained unchanged. For six years prior to the plaintiff's injury these openings had proved to be safe, and not at all dangerous. Whatever was the width at Grand street, thousands upon thousands of passengers, often in a hurry and thronging in crowds, had stepped over it without harm or danger. But a single instance is disclosed to the contrary, and that of so slight a character that it was not reported to the company. How is it possible to say that an opening thus tested by years of use was negligent in its origin or its maintenance? Indeed the plaintiff herself adds to the force of this fact. She had taken the cars at that point a hundred times or more, stepping across the opening without trouble or danger, and gives unconscious testimony to its safety by seeking to show that on this one occasion a change had occurred, and the opening was wider than usual. Her whole case depends upon that allegation, the burden of which rested upon her. She meets...