Sellon v. Boston Elevated Ry. Co.
| Decision Date | 04 April 1911 |
| Citation | 94 N.E. 684,208 Mass. 507 |
| Parties | SELLON v. BOSTON ELEVATED RY. CO. |
| Court | United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court |
D. H Coakley, J. M. Gove, and Henry Siskind, for plaintiff.
Arthur A. Ballantine, for defendant.
This is an action of tort brought by a traveler upon a public way to recover compensation for personal injuries received by reason of a collision with a car of the defendant.
There was evidence to the effect that there were double tracks of the defendant in the middle of Blue Hill avenue, in a reserved space covered with grass for the most part separated from the wagon way on each side by curbing, except that there was a paved space across the tracks opposite Norfolk street a street diverging toward the east. The plaintiff drove a light express wagon with one horse into the avenue from the west, proceeded northerly on its left side to the paved space, when he turned to cross into Norfolk street. He then saw a car on the easterly track, 500 feet northerly from him stop, to let a passenger alight, and start toward him, while he walked his horse across the tracks. When the horse was on the tracks he observed that the car was 300 to 350 feet away and 'had increased its speed considerably,' and when his own person was between the two tracks and 'the horse was over' the car was 200 feet away, and that was the last he remembered. The car was going at a high rate of speed, which did not diminish until it struck a rear wheel of the plaintiff's wagon, and it then ran 100 feet before stopping.
There was much evidence tending to controvert this narration, and to show that the accident happened in a wholly different place and way. Its weight upon the printed record appears to show that causes entirely disconnected from neglect of the defendant produced the injury. But these considerations were for the jury and the trial court upon the motion for a new trial. The verdict for the plaintiff cannot be set aside unless upon the view of the evidence most favorable to the plaintiff it can be said as matter of law that there was no proof of the due care of plaintiff or of the negligence of the defendant's motorman.
The principles of law which govern the relative rights and obligations of drivers of vehicles and those in charge of trolley cars, traveling upon a highway, are that neither has an exclusive right of way upon any part of the street, and that each may within reasonable limits rely on due regard for his safety by the other, subject only to the limitation that there shall be no unreasonable interference with the progress of the trolley car, which...
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