St. Louis, I. M. & S. Ry. Co. v. Oliver
| Decision Date | 06 December 1909 |
| Citation | 123 S.W. 662 |
| Parties | ST. LOUIS, I. M. & S. RY. CO. v. OLIVER. |
| Court | Arkansas Supreme Court |
Appeal from Circuit Court, Hot Springs County; W. H. Evans, Judge.
Action by O. D. Oliver against the St. Louis, Iron Mountain & Southern Railway Company. From a judgment for plaintiff, defendant appeals. Affirmed.
Kinsworthy & Rhoton, Bridges, Woolridge & Gantt, and Jas. H. Stevenson, for appellant. M. S. Cobb, for appellee.
On the night of December 13, 1907, O. D. Oliver, the plaintiff below, secured passage on one of defendant's passenger trains from Malvern to Benton. While passing out of the chair car to the smoker ahead, he fell in an open trapdoor in the vestibule between the cars and was severely injured. The cars of the trains were vestibuled; that is, they were provided with outer doors at each side of the coach plat-forms and with trapdoors over the steps. When the train was in motion, these outer vestibule doors would be closed, and the trapdoors closed down so as to cover the steps at the end of the coaches and thus make a solid platform between the cars. The testimony on the part of the plaintiff tended to prove that, when he entered the train of the defendant at Malvern, he went into the chair car, and in a short time thereafter he proceeded to go from that car to the smoking car. As he passed out of the chair car onto the platform between the cars, he met a gentleman starting to go into the chair car, and he stepped slightly to the side to permit the party to pass, and fell down the steps in the vestibule. The trapdoor was not down over these steps, and it was dark in this passageway between the cars and in the vestibule. The train at the time of the injury had left Malvern and was running towards Benton. The rules and custom of the defendant required that, when such a vestibuled passenger train left a station, the servants of the defendant should close the vestibule doors and close down the trapdoors over the steps. These trapdoors had a catch on them to hold them securely when thus closed; but they could be raised by any one. Several servants of the company testified that in the performance of their duties they passed over the platform between these two coaches after the train had left Malvern, and that all the trapdoors between these coaches were down and over the steps when the train left Malvern; but their testimony indicated that they did not notice this trapdoor, where plaintiff was injured, either at the time of or just before or after the injury, and none of them testified that it was not in fact open at the time or just before or after the injury. Upon a trial of the cause before a jury, a verdict was returned in favor of the plaintiff for $500. The defendant prosecutes this appeal.
A common carrier of passengers is not under any legal obligation to provide upon its line of railroad vestibuled trains, although such trains are apparently safer than the others and have come to be in general use; but, when the carrier has provided vestibuled trains, it is his duty to maintain them in a safe condition. It then becomes the positive duty of the carrier in the operation of such trains to use the highest degree of care consistent with the practical operation and management thereof to see that every appliance connected therewith is kept in repair and in safe condition. The passenger has the right to assume that the vestibules provided are carefully managed, and that they are convenient and safe. The principles generally recognized as fundamental in the law of carriers of passengers are applicable to these new appliances. 2 Hutchinson on Carriers, § 927; Bronson v. Oakes, 76 Fed. 735, 22 C. C. A. 520; Crandall v. M., St. P. & S. S. M. Ry., 96 Minn. 434, 105 N. W. 185, 2 L. R. A. (N. S.) 645, 113 Am. St. Rep. 653; Sansom v. Southern Ry. Co., 111 Fed. 887, 50 C. C. A. 53; Northern Pac. Ry. Co. v. Adams, 116 Fed. 324, 54 C. C. A. 196; 4 Elliott on Railroads, § 1589A.; Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific Ry. Co. v. Simpson, 87 Ark. 335, 112 S. W. 875. The degree of care that is required of the carrier in furnishing sound and safe appliances in its vestibuled trains, and seeing to it that those appliances are kept at all times safe and sound while its trains are carrying passengers, is not one of ordinary care, but the carrier "is bound to the utmost diligence which human skill and foresight can effect, and if injury occurs by reason of the slightest...
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