Stangy v. Boston Elevated Ry. Co.
| Decision Date | 01 March 1915 |
| Parties | STANGY v. BOSTON ELEVATED RY. CO. |
| Court | United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court |
Chas. Toye and Alex R. Kelley, both of Boston, for plaintiff.
Sheldon E. Wardwell, of Boston, for defendant.
The plaintiff, while a passenger in a trolley car running on the surface of Boylston street in Boston, was injured by glass from the car windows broken by a 'crash.' The material evidence as to the way in which the windows were broken was offered by the plaintiff, and tended to show that the car was a large one and that the third or fourth window from the front of the car and one or two windows behind that were broken. Immediately thereafter a coal team belonging to one Batchelder was seen standing on the street, the horses facing 'in toward the curbstone and the rear half of the wagon was five or six inches away from the car,' or, as another witness testified, the team was alongside the trolley car and 'parallel with the exception of sluing around when it collided,' and that 'the rear of the wagon was closer in to the side of the car than the horses' heads were.' It was also testified that 'there was a fence sticking way out from the sidewalk about up and below there,' and that there was plenty of room for a team to pass between this structure and the rail.
This evidence fails to show negligence on the part of the defendant. The injury to the plaintiff resulted from a collision between the car in which he was riding and a coal wagon. But there is nothing to indicate by whose fault this was caused. The car of the defendant was upon a public street and not in a location devoted exclusively to its uses. The mere fact of a collision between travelers on a public way without more is not enough to fasten negligence upon either especially where as here the side and not the forward end of the car is concerned. Whether the defendant or the persons in charge of the coal team were negligent is left wholly to conjecture. Niland v. Boston Elevated Railway, 213 Mass. 522, 100 N.E. 554; Deagle v. New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad, 217 Mass. 23, 104 N.E. 493.
The case at bar is not within the doctrine of res ipsa loquitur which oftentimes is enough to support a finding of negligence on the part of a common carrier. Rust v. Springfield Street Railway, 217 Mass. 116, 104 N.E. 367; Bell v New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad, 217 Mass. 408, 104 N.E. 963. That doctrine does not establish liability where a...
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