St. Louis, I. M. & S. Ry. Co. v. Rush

• Citation: 111 S.W. 263
• Parties: ST. LOUIS, I. M. & S. RY. CO. v. RUSH.
• Decision Date: 25 May 1908
• Court: Supreme Court of Arkansas

111 S.W. 263

ST. LOUIS, I. M. & S. RY. CO. v. RUSH.

Supreme Court of Arkansas.

May 25, 1908.

Appeal from Circuit Court, Miller County; J. M. Carter, Judge.

Action by A. J. Rush against the St. Louis, Iron Mountain & Southern Railway Company for the death of plaintiff's wife. From a judgment for plaintiff, defendant appeals. Reversed and remanded.

T. M. Mehaffy and J. E. Williams, for appellant. McMillan & McMillan, J. D. Conway, and W. H. Arnold, for appellee.

HILL, C. J.

Mrs. Rush, wife of the plaintiff, who is appellee here, with her little daughter, six years old, took passage on a train of the appellant company at Arkadelphia, destined to Texarkana. She had never traveled on a railroad train before, and was exceedingly nervous and apprehensive during her journey. Before the train reached Texarkana, the ordinary notification in the coach was given, and Mrs. Rush was assured by the conductor and porter that they would help her off the train; but, when the train was approaching the station, the passengers left the car in which she was riding, and went forward to depart from a forward car. Mrs. Rush evidently became nervous over this situation, and went forward with her child, and, finding the trapdoor to the vestibule open, and the train either stopped or running very slowly, descended upon the steps, evidently fearing that she was about to be carried beyond the station, and while there fell or was thrown by the movement of the train and was instantly killed. This action was brought by her husband, and he recovered a verdict for $5,000, upon which judgment was entered, and the railroad company has appealed.

The case turns upon the correctness of the fourth and sixth instructions, which sum up the evidence upon which the plaintiff sought to recover, and which are as follows:

"(4) If you find from the evidence that as the train on which Mrs. Rush was a passenger was approaching Texarkana, her destination, the employés of the defendant announced the name of the station in the customary manner, and opened the door and raised the platform which formed and closed up the vestibule between the coach in which Mrs. Rush was a passenger and the coach next to it, and that thereupon the train slowed down, and that Mrs. Rush, believing that Texarkana had been reached and that the train was slowing down to stop at the station, left her seat and went to the door of the coach, and while the train was moving very slowly stepped down on the steps to be in readiness to step off when the train should fully stop, and that, instead of stopping fully, the train moved suddenly forward without notice or warning, in consequence of the negligent act of the employés of the defendant, and she was thereby thrown under the train, and run over and killed, it would be for the jury to say, under all the facts and circumstances of the case shown in the evidence, whether the conduct of Mrs. Rush caused or contributed...