Thomas v. Boston Elevated Ry.

• Decision Date: 02 January 1907
• Citation: 193 Mass. 438,79 N.E. 749
• Parties: THOMAS v. BOSTON ELEVATED RY.
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

193 Mass. 438

79 N.E. 749

THOMAS v. BOSTON ELEVATED RY.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts

January 2, 1907

COUNSEL

Robt. H. Benny, Chas. H. Stebbins, and Oscar Storer, for plaintiff.

E. P Saltonstall, for defendant.

OPINION

SHELDON J.

There was no evidence to justify a finding by the jury that the injury to the plaintiff was due to any negligence of the defendant. The car did not start while she was alighting; no act either of omission or of commission by any of the defendant's servants appears to have had anything to do with her fall. There is a total failure of evidence to sustain the burden which rested on the plaintiff. Wadsworth v. Boston Elevated Railway, 182 Mass. 572 66 N.E. 421; Gleason v. Worcester Consolidated Street Railway, 184 Mass. 290, 68 N.E. 225.

The plaintiff's counsel contends that from the facts that her dress was caught while she was alighting from the front platform of a somewhat crowded car, there being four other people on this platform beside the motorman, and that she was firmly caught so that someone pulled her towards the car to loosen her dress, the jury might infer that she was caught by something securely attached to the car; that the company or the motorman ought to have known that this thing was so attached to the car, and so that the vestibule was defective and the company negligent in allowing such a condition of things to exist. But we think that each of these inferences was merely conjectural. Barker, J., in Gleason v. Worcester Consolidated Street Railway, 184 Mass. 290, 291, 68 N.E. 225. There are many appliances upon the platform and vestibule of a street car in good condition upon which a dress might be caught without any negligence on the defendant's part. There may be many things, articles of baggage, bundles or boxes, temporarily placed upon a front platform by passengers, without any such negligence. See Cahn v. Manhattan Railway (Sup.) 76 N.Y.S. 893; Howell v. Union Traction Co., 202 Pa. 338, 51 A. 885; Searles v. Manhattan Railway, 101 N.Y. 661, 5 N.E. 66. This case is similar to Jacobs v. West End Street Railway, 178 Mass. 116, 119, 59 N.E. 639, in which the plaintiff tripped over something not identified, while alighting from a crowded rear platform; and there being no evidence of any defect in the platform, it was held that she could not maintain any action against the railway company.

Nor does the doctrine of 'res ipsa loquitur' help...