Smith v. Baltimore Transit Co., 63

• Decision Date: 08 January 1957
• Docket Number: No. 63,63
• Citation: 211 Md. 529,128 A.2d 413
• Parties: Carolvn SMITH v. The BALTIMORE TRANSIT COMPANY.
• Court: Maryland Court of Appeals

Page 529

211 Md. 529

128 A.2d 413

Carolvn SMITH v. The BALTIMORE TRANSIT COMPANY.

No. 63.

Court of Appeals of Maryland.

Jan. 8, 1957.

H. Emslie Parks and Z. Townsend Parks, Jr., Baltimore, for appellant.

John E. Boerner, Baltimore (James J. Lindsay and Patrick A. O'Doherty, Baltimore, on the brief), for appellee.

Before COLLINS, HENDERSON, HAMMOND and PRESCOTT, JJ., and JAMES MACGILL, Special Judge.

COLLINS, Judge.

The appellant, plaintiff, Mrs. Carolyn Smith, on February 25, 1954, boarded a bus of the Baltimore Transit Co., appellee, defendant, in Baltimore at Saratoga Street, which was northbound on Cathedral Street. She paid her fare and seated herself on the horizontal rear seat which ran all the way across the bus. She was seated directly opposite and at the end of the aisle running between the seats. There was no seat directly opposite her. While she was so seated, the bus stopped and she fell into the aisle on her knees. The evidence showed that the bus stop was caused by a collision between the bus and an unidentified station wagon. Appellant brought suit against the appellee for permanent injuries which she claimed she sustained on this occasion. The jury rendered a verdict in favor of the appellee. From a judgment for costs entered in favor of the appellee, the appellant appeals.

Mrs. Smith testified that she sat on the rear seat of the bus directly in front of the aisle. Her cousin, Mrs. Kammer, who accompanied her, sat to her right. There were single seats in the bus but they sat on the rear seat in order that they could sit together. As the bus was proceeding north on Cathedral Street, it stopped so suddenly that she 'went like I was shot out of a cannon down on my knees, and before I could get up, it started up again with another jerk, and I was twisted and thrown almost to the center where you go out of the door in the center.' She was thrown down so hard that her stockings were ripped. When the bus started again she was twisted and thrown over on her back and her head hit the rail near the exit. She did not know why the bus stopped suddenly. It started again immediately after it stopped and before she could get up. The bus then kept on going. Her cousin went to the front and told the bus driver to come back to her. The bus at that time had reached Read Street. The bus driver came back to her, saw that she was hurt, picked her up and put her on the side seat. He then called an ambulance. Someone came and offered her a transfer ticket with which to go to the hospital which she refused. A policeman came and insisted that an ambulance be gotten to take her to the hospital. The ambulance arrived and took her to Mercy Hospital.

Mrs. Edna Kammer testified that she got on the bus with Mrs. Smith and sat along side of her on the rear seat. She did not think there was anyone else on that seat. The back of a seat was in front of her but there was nothing in front of Mrs. Smith. As they were proceeding north on Cathedral Street the bus stopped with a 'sudden jerk'. It was so sudden it threw Mrs. Smith to the floor. She tried to grab Mrs. Smith but she went 'too fast'. She said: 'Then, all of a sudden, we had another jerk and it threw her over on her back.' She supposed that the second jerk came when the bus started up again. When asked to describe the first 'jerk' she said: 'Well, I can tell you it was awfully sudden, with such a force, that she went on her knees and, of course, like I told you, it started up again suddenly before she could get up and it threw her on her back.' She walked up the aisle, holding on, to inform the bus driver of Mrs. Smith's injury while the bus was in motion. He came back and talked to Mrs. Smith. She did not see the station wagon or the collision. She described the 'jerk' as a sudden stop. No one else was thrown on the floor.

Mrs. Dolores Schultz testified that she was a passenger on the bus, seated to the rear on the short seat, on the right hand side at the side exit. She had a shopping bag full of food and 'about $30 worth of records in my arm'. She did not know either Mrs. Smith or Mrs. Kammer. She stated: 'Well, I was sitting right there and all of a sudden the bus stopped violently, and my shopping bag went over and records fell on the floor, and he immediately started up again at a pretty good clip of speed and it stopped the same way. As I say, my records fell to the floor plus the shopping bag, and I went forward too. I looked in the aisle, and there was Mrs. Smith on her knees, and then all of a sudden when it started out again the same way, she was twisted around very much like a rag doll. Someone was trying to grab her arm, and she was twisted and turned, and she went right back on her back.' Several voices called out: 'Well, get the driver to stop the bus. The woman is actually hurt.' Mrs. Kammer went up to the bus driver while the bus was in motion and told him that someone was hurt. He immediately stopped the bus and came back. The bus eventually stopped at Read Street. The bus driver evidently did not now that anyone was hurt and she did not mean to imply that he ignored the lady lying on the floor. He started up immediately. She was not thrown off the seat because, like Mrs. Kammer, she had something to grab. However, she was quite shaken up. She did not see the station wagon.

Walter W. Smith, the bus driver, testified that he had stopped at Franklin and Cathedral Streets and had taken on a passenger. He was proceeding on Cathedral Street north from Franklin to Centre Street at about ten or fifteen miles per hour, down a very 'deep down' grade. Cathedral Street was one way northbound, with either three or four lanes for northbound traffic and no parking was allowed. When he was about half way down the block in the curb lane on the right a Chevrolet station wagon going about five miles faster than his bus passed him in the left traffic lane next to the bus. There was no other traffic going north except the bus and the station wagon. As the station wagon reached Centre Street, the driver pulled over a little to the left to make a left turn up Centre Street. This would take him west on Centre which was an eastbound street. The driver of the Chevrolet then realized he could not go west. The light was green and he, Smith, was going to proceed on because the Chevrolet was in the left lane and he was in the right lane. He had his foot resting on the brakes slowing the bus down as he approached Centre Street. No one wanted to board or alight at Centre Street. When the driver of the Chevrolet saw the traffic facing him on Centre Street moving eastbound, he swung back into the lane of traffic occupied by the bus. Smith blew the horn because the station wagon was only about twenty or twenty-five feet ahead of him on the down grade. When the driver of the Chevrolet saw the bus 'it must have panicked him or something because he got over to my lane and that's where he stopped. He stopped right in the center, and there wasn't enough room then for my bus to get through in that right-hand lane, so I had to apply the brakes, and as I applied the brakes and as I stopped, I hit him on his--on the right corner of his back bumper, and then he pulled on across the street. I thought he was going to stop.' The stop was sudden but not violent. He threw on all the air-brakes. When the driver of the Chevrolet slammed on his brakes and stopped, he had to do the same thing. If he had not put on his brakes and stopped, the Chevrolet might have hit the side of the bus and severely injured some of the people. There were a few people standing at that time. The lady who boarded the bus at Franklin Street was standing near the fare box, near him. Just about at the intersection of Centre and Cathedral Streets he touched the right rear bumper of the station wagon on the tip. When he stopped at Centre Street he did not make an inquiry whether anyone on the bus was hurt because the accident did not seem like it was serious enough for anyone to be hurt. He did look around and looked in his rear view mirror but he could not see all the way to the rear because some of the passengers were standing in the aisle. When he started up he made a smooth start because he thought the station wagon, which had pulled over as if it were going to the curb, would stop again. However the station wagon drove up Cathedral Street. Before he could get the license number it went east on Monument Street. When the bus reached Monument Street he stopped, got out and looked down Monument Street to see whether he could see the Chevrolet but it had disappeared. He returned to the bus, closed the door and started on. He thought he was up to Madison Street when a lady came and told him that her friend was hurt. He stopped the bus, went back, saw the lady, and she told him she had hurt her knees. He asked her whether she wanted to go to the hospital or whether she wanted an ambulance. She told him she wanted a private car, a taxicab. He told her he was not authorized to get it. He drove on up Cathedral Street. When he reached Read the other lady came back again and told him that her friend's knees were hurt. He stopped the bus and waited until another bus going in the same direction came up. He transferred his passengers to the other bus. He called his supervisor, who called the ambulance and carried Mrs. Smith to the hospital. He did not know anyone was hurt until Mrs. Kammer told him. When he found that Mrs. Smith was injured he made inquiry and found that no one else was injured. At the time of the collision the bus stopped only a couple of minutes. He asked several people on the bus if they had seen the tag number on the Chevrolet, but none had seen it.

Mrs. Ellen R. Clapp, called by the appellee, stated that she boarded the bus at Franklin and Cathedral Streets. It started up fairly promptly after she entered. She had paid her fare and, because they were going down hill, she held on to the rail back...