Staines v. Cent. R. Co. of N.J.

• Decision Date: 19 June 1905
• Citation: 72 N.J.L. 268,61 A. 385
• Parties: STAINES v. CENTRAL R. CO. OF NEW JERSEY.
• Court: New Jersey Supreme Court

61 A. 385

72 N.J.L. 268

STAINES

v. CENTRAL R. CO. OF NEW JERSEY.

Court of Errors and Appeals of New Jersey.

June 19, 1905.

(Syllabus by the Court.)

Error to Circuit Court, Union County.

Action by Annie Staines against the Central Railroad Company of New Jersey. Judgment for defendant, and plaintiff brings error. Reversed.

The plaintiff, a passenger of the defendant company, was injured by jumping from a train at Elizabethport. The train was at a standstill. The plaintiff was in the act of alighting, and had gone down two steps, when some one in uniform, who was walking up and down with a lantern in his hand (the plaintiff says it was the conductor), told her to hurry, and said that the train was in motion, and to jump down. She says that she got excited, thought the train was in motion, that she would be killed, and jumped to save herself. It was dark, after 6 o'clock in the afternoon of December 22d. She was a heavy woman, over 50 years of age, and was injured as the result of the jump. The court below ordered a nonsuit upon the ground that the plaintiff was guilty of contributory negligence in jumping from a train that was standing still, which she believed to be moving.

J. A. Kiernan, for plaintiff in error. William A. Barkalow and Sherrerd Depue, for defendant in error.

SWAYZE, J. (after stating the facts). Since passengers are themselves required to exercise judgment in alighting, it can hardly be questioned that the servants of the railroad company must refrain from conduct calculated to deprive them of their judgment and self-control. It would involve a manifest inconsistency to hold passengers liable for the exercise of care and to hold the carrier excusable for acts of its servants likely to prevent the exercise of that care. The defendant does not question the liability of the carrier for such acts of its servants, but argues that a false statement made by employé is not an act of negligence. The argument overlooks the fact that the false statement as to the movement of the train was accompanied by the advice to jump, and, moreover, gives altogether too narrow a meaning to the word "act." We think the word includes in its signification any conduct of the defendant's servants, whether evinced by movement of the organs of speech or some other physical movement. The phrase "act of speaking" does not seem to involve any strained or unusual use of the word "act."

The case, taking it, as we must on a judgment of nonsuit, most strongly for the plaintiff, presents also the question whether a reasonable time had been allowed the plaintiff to alight. There is no evidence to indicate unusual slowness in her movements or delay. She came out of the car behind her daughter, with other passengers, and was entitled to sufficient time to alight in the usual way, taking her age and weight into consideration, without being hurried by the conductor.

The question whether the negligence of the conductor was the proximate cause of the injury is one as to which doubt has been expressed. It is true that an act of the plaintiff intervenes between the negligence of the defendant's servant and the injury to the plaintiff; but the cases generally hold that the passenger may rightly rely upon the superior experience of the trainmen in determining whether the action which he is advised to take is dangerous, unless the danger is so glaring that no person of ordinary prudence would have followed the advice. 3 Thompson on Negligence, § 2850, citing the cases. It is true as the defendant argues that these are cases where the trainmen may be supposed to have superior knowledge, and that the present is a case where the fact that the train was standing still was as obvious to the plaintiff as to the conductor; but the conductor might properly be supposed to have superior knowledge as to the probability of the train being on the point of moving, and the plaintiff, even if she observed that the statement that the train was moving was false, might well have thought that it was on the point of starting, and have naturally become excited by the conductor's hurrying her. In her excitement she might not, and probably could not, have observed the circumstances as well as if she had been more self-possessed. Her act in Jumping under the circumstances was to a certain extent involuntary, and the partial paralysis of the plaintiff's will through fear was due to the conduct of the defendant's servant. In New York it has been held that a street railway company would be liable, even to a trespasser stealing a ride, when the conductor frightened him by a sudden gesture and ejaculation so that he fell off. Ansteth v. Buffalo Railway Co., 145 N. Y. 210, 39 N. E. 708, 45 Am. St. Rep. 607. And in Massachusetts it has been intimated that the rule might apply where the plaintiff was frightened to the point of automatic action or loss of judgment and self-control. Mugford v. Boston & Maine R. R. Co., 173 Mass. 10, 52 N. E. 1078. This court has refused to sustain an action by a trespasser under such circumstances (Powell v. Erie R. R. Co., 70 N. J. Law, 290, 58 Atl. 930), but the case of a passenger stands on a different ground. The difficulty expressed by the trial judge was with reference to contributory negligence. The fact that...