Stout v. Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific Railway Co.

• Decision Date: 15 November 1924
• Docket Number: 35940
• Parties: MARY STOUT, Appellee, v. CHICAGO, ROCK ISLAND & PACIFIC RAILWAY COMPANY, Appellant
• Court: Iowa Supreme Court

200 N.W. 596

198 Iowa 1017

MARY STOUT, Appellee, v. CHICAGO, ROCK ISLAND & PACIFIC RAILWAY COMPANY, Appellant

No. 35940

Supreme Court of Iowa, Des Moines

November 15, 1924

Appeal from Keokuk District Court.--H. F. WAGNER, Judge.

ACTION for personal injuries sustained by plaintiff in alighting from one of the passenger trains of the defendant. A verdict was returned for the plaintiff, and the defendant appeals.

Reversed.

J. G Gamble, A. B. Howland, and Stockman & Baker, for appellant.

Willcockson & Willcockson, for appellee.

FAVILLE J. ARTHUR, C. J., and EVANS and STEVENS, JJ., concur.

OPINION

FAVILLE, J.

On July 5, 1920, appellee was a passenger on the train of appellant which arrived at the station in Des Moines at about 10:30 P M. July 4, 1920, fell on a Sunday, and the celebration of the holiday was held, generally, on July 5th. The train upon which appellee was a passenger was crowded with people. Appellee, accompanied by another woman, rode in the smoking car, the ladies' coach on the train being crowded with passengers at the time. The smoking car in which appellee rode was, as we understand it, attached next to the baggage car in the train. When the train stopped at the station at Des Moines, the conductor and train crew took their places at the rear end of the smoking car and at the front end of the passenger car, next to it. There was no employee stationed at the front end of the smoking car. The vestibule at the front end of the smoking car was closed when the train arrived at the station, and the vestibule platform was down, closing the steps in such a manner that passengers could not pass from the car to the platform. Some passenger on the train, however, raised the vestibule platform and opened the vestibule door at the front end of the car, and a number of the passengers in the smoking car made their exit from the train through this door, appellee being among the number. She preceded the woman who accompanied her. She went down the steps of the coach, and in stepping from the bottom step to the platform, fell and fractured the femur bone of her left hip. She was, at the time of the injury, past 89 years of age. The fractured bone united, resulting in a shortening of the left limb. The jury returned a verdict for appellee for $ 3,250.

I. One ground of negligence alleged by appellee and submitted to the jury by the court was a failure to properly light the railway station platform at Des Moines where appellee alighted from the train. Sometime prior to the trial of the case, the deposition of appellee was taken. In said deposition she testified as follows:

"Q. What is the fact, Mrs. Stout, as to whether it was light enough for you to observe whether or not there was a stool there? A. Yes, there was no stool there at all. Q. Could you see whether there was or not? Was it dark or light, so you could see? A. I think it was light enough so I could see there was no stool there. Q. Well, there is lights along the edge of the depot? A. I suppose so. Q. You saw those lights there that night, did you not? A. Yes, sir. Q. Now were there any lights overhead, up over the tracks,--or did you notice? A. I didn't notice about that. Q. You hadn't seen anything of any of the trainmen around the front end of the car, had you? A. No, sir. Q. When you started down, you could see there wasn't any brakeman or conductor there? A. I could see there was no one there at all. Q. And it was light enough so that you could see there was no step box there? A. Yes, sir."

The undisputed evidence shows that, on the night of the injury in question, there was a row of electric lights extending along the edge of the depot, being about fifteen in number, and about ten or twelve feet apart. They were what are known as sixty-watt lamps. There was also one light suspended over the tracks at the east end of the baggage room, about thirty feet high from the ground, between the first and second tracks. This was a form of are light, with a shade over it, throwing the reflection down upon the platform. All of these lights were burning at the time the train in question came into the station, as were the lights in the depot. The train arrived on the second track from the depot and about thirty feet distant from it. There was no train or other obstruction between the depot and the track upon which the train arrived. The evidence tends to show that the night was dark and cloudy, and that it had been raining some. The evidence of appellee upon the trial of the case was to the effect that it was dark about the station platform at the time she arrived, and is practically in direct conflict with her evidence as given in the deposition respecting the conditions of lighting at the time she fell. Other witnesses in behalf of appellee testified in a general way that it was "dark" next to the train at the place where appellee alighted. There is no dispute in the record, however, as to the physical facts in regard to the manner in which the station platform was lighted by the system of lights above described.

Under this...