Taylor v. Pennsylvania Co.

• Decision Date: 09 May 1892
• Docket Number: 4,767.
• Citation: 50 F. 755
• Parties: TAYLOR v. PENNSYLVANIA CO.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Northern District of Ohio

50 F. 755

TAYLOR v. PENNSYLVANIA CO.

No. 4,767.

United States Circuit Court, N.D. Ohio, Eastern Division.

May 9, 1892

John M Stull, F. E. Hutchins, and Robert B. Murray, for plaintiff.

J. R Carey and W. C. Boyle, for defendant.

RICKS District Judge.

The plaintiff instituted this suit to recover damages for a serious injury sustained by her in the Union Depot in Pittsburgh, while she was about to pass out of one of the exit gates through which passengers were required to go to reach the cars. The depot was under the control of the defendant company, and the plaintiff, when injured, was a passenger going to the train which was operated by the defendant, and destined for Niles, Ohio, where she resided. She had purchased an excursion ticket on that day good for one trip from Niles to Pittsburgh and return, and with a very large number of people had visited the latter city on the occasion of the Allegheny Bicentennial Celebration. The defendant company, and other railroads centering in Pittsburgh, had extensively advertised this celebration, and each of them had industriously solicited people to attend. It continued for three days, and the testimony shows that during each of these days a greater number of passengers had been received and discharged from the Union Depot than ever before. The plaintiff was one of this unprecedented crowd. She had left Niles in the morning, transacted her business in Pittsburgh, and returned to the depot about 4 P.M., and there awaited the proper opportunity to pass from the depot to the corridor and exit gates to her train. While so waiting in the depot reception room she heard some person announce the train for Youngstown, when she proceeded to the large door leading from the vestibule to the corridor, and, having shown her ticket to some officer having a badge upon his coat, he passed her out into the vestibule, which was then nearly full of people. She took her place as one of the passengers waiting for the gates to open so that she could proceed to her train. The crowd increased in numbers rapidly, and soon was so closely packed behind and around her as to make it impossible for her to retreat or to move in any direction. She described the jam as so dense that she almost suffocated and said she was from 10 to 15 minutes in passing from the reception room to the gate. As soon as it opened, the crowd began to move, and she moved with it, and, when she reached the iron railing constructed to turn people to the narrow exit of the gateway, she was, by a sudden surging of the throng, forced and jammed against the railing, and so injured in her spine as to paralyze her lower limbs, and permanently disable her. The case was submitted to a jury, and a verdict returned for the plaintiff, assessing her damages in the sum of $5,500. The defendant has filed its motion to set aside this verdict, and for a new trial.

That the accident occurred substantially as above described is clearly established by the evidence. The two important issues of fact submitted to the jury were: First, did the defendant exercise ordinary case in providing a suitable force of officers and employes to properly control and direct the movement of the unprecedented throng which it was advised would crowd through its depot rooms, vestibule, corridors, and gates to reach its trains? and, second, did the defendant, regardless of the unusual crowd to be cared for and controlled, undertake to force it through one exit gate to the trains, and thereby cause unnecessary jamming and jostling and violence, and, without fault on the plaintiff's part, force her against the railing, and injure her, as already stated? The defendant had so constructed its depot that from the spacious corridor, in which this large crowd congregated, five exit gates were provided through which passengers could go to their different trains. The plaintiff and one other witness testified that but one gate was open at the time of the accident occurred, and that all the vast crowd was forced through that single gate. Four witnesses for the defendant testified that all five gates were open. The only gate keeper whose testimony was taken was the one stationed at the center gate, about which there was no dispute. The other gate keepers, and policemen stationed with them, at the other four gates, were not examined; and it was argued with some force to the jury that their absence was suspicious, and that the witnesses who testified that those four gates were also open had other important duties to perform, and did not observe the gates closely enough to know whether in fact they were open or not at the time of this accident. There was no special finding as to these facts, and I am therefore not advised as to what the conclusion of the jury was as to this issue. It may have been in favor of defendant's contention, and yet the jury may have concluded that upon the other issue, as to the exercise of ordinary care to provide plaintiff a safe exit, the defendant was negligent in not providing a sufficient force to control the crowd. But assuming that the jury found that the gates were not all open at the time of the accident, and that thereby the results before stated followed, such finding is not so clearly against the weight of evidence as to justify me in disturbing it.

The only remaining question, therefore, is, did the defendant exercise ordinary care in providing a suitable force to properly control and direct the movements of the unprecedented crowd then in its custody? The evidence offered by the defendant was that it made application to the chief of police of Pittsburgh for an extra force of patrolmen, and got all it wanted, and that...