Sauvan v. Citizens' Elec. St. Ry. Co.

• Decision Date: 11 January 1908
• Citation: 83 N.E. 405,197 Mass. 176
• Parties: SAUVAN v. CITIZENS' ELECTRIC ST. RY. CO. (two cases).
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

197 Mass. 176

83 N.E. 405

SAUVAN v. CITIZENS' ELECTRIC ST. RY. CO. (two cases).

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Essex.

January 11, 1908

Defendant's fourth, seventh, eighth, and ninth requested rulings were as follows:

'(4) The defendant company, having stopped its car to let the plaintiff on, was bound to keep that car standing until the plaintiff had got entirely upon the car; but the defendant company was under no obligation to the plaintiff as a passenger to hold its car standing until the plaintiff had seated herself in the car.'

'(7) The conductor was under no obligation to wait until Mrs Sauvan had become seated before giving the signal to start.

'(8) The conductor was not negligent in starting the car when he did.

'(9) I direct you as a matter of law that there is no evidence of negligence in this case on the part of the conductor of the car.'

COUNSEL

John H. Casey, Nathaniel N. Jones, and Ernest Foss, for plaintiffs.

Guy Murchie, for defendant.

OPINION

LORING J.

By the plaintiffs' evidence Mrs. Sauvan (who will be spoken of hereafter as the plaintiff) had stepped up over the steps into the vestibule and was fairly and fully on the floor of the vestibule of the car before the conductor rang the starting bell. What she complains of is that the starting bell was rung when she had put one foot on the floor of the car, had thrown her weight on to that foot, and was in the act of bringing the other foot up and forward. Her contention is that on this evidence the jury could have found that the conductor, in giving the signal to start the car when he did, did not use the care which is owed by a common carrier to one of its passengers.

If the starting signal was given when the plaintiff contends that it was given, it seems hardly possible that the car could have started before the second foot had reached the car floor, or at any rate it might well be contended that the conductor could not have anticipated an instantaneous response to his signal. But apart from that, it is settled in this commonwealth that under ordinary circumstances it is not negligence for a conductor to give the starting signal after the passenger is fully and fairly on the car. Weeks v. Boston Elevated Railway, 190 Mass. 563, 77 N.E. 654.

In Gordon v. West End Street Railway, 175 Mass. [197 Mass. 178] 181, 55 N.E. 990, the passenger was in the act of getting onto the car. In Hamilton v. Boston &...