Walker v. St. Paul City Railway Company
| Decision Date | 22 November 1900 |
| Docket Number | 12,340 - (50) |
| Parties | ROSE WALKER v. ST. PAUL CITY RAILWAY COMPANY |
| Court | Minnesota Supreme Court |
Action in the district court for Ramsey county to recover $10,000 damages for personal injuries. The case was tried before Bunn, J., and a jury, which rendered a verdict in favor of plaintiff for $3,000. From an order denying a motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict or for a new trial defendant appealed. Affirmed.
Street Railway -- Signals to Stop Car -- Duty of Passenger.
It is not the duty of a person seeking passage on an electric street car to assume tat proper signals to stop the car will be disregarded, but such passenger may have regard to the probable conduct of the person in charge of the car, and act accordingly, when such reliance and action thereon are not apparently attended with danger.
Street Railway -- Customary Speed.
It is not, as a matter of law, negligence for a person intending to take passage on a street car to assume that such car is running at the customary rate of speed, and to act with reference to such custom, in the absence of evidence to the contrary.
Reckless Speed -- Neglect to Stop -- Passing in Front of Car.
Evidence considered, and held to support the finding of the jury that defendant negligently disregarded signals to stop one of its electric cars, which was run at a reckless rate of speed past the proper stopping place, and that plaintiff was not negligent, under the facts found by the jury in this case, in passing before such car, intending to enter the same as a passenger.
Munn & Thygeson, for appellant.
Henry Conlin, for respondent.
Defendant owed the duty to every person who might be at the point in question intending to become a passenger to anticipate his presence and the fact that he would be passing across in just the manner defendant had provided for him, and to be on the lookout for him. It was its duty to regulate the speed of its cars in approaching with reference to the probability of persons being there, so that the car could readily be stopped if people were discovered there or after being signaled a reasonable distance from the platform, and to stop its cars there when such signal was given. Booth, St. Ry. § 347; Augusta v. Randall, 79 Ga. 304; Coller v Frankford, 9 W.N. Cas. 477; Bowie v. Greenville, 69 Miss. 196; Strutzel v. St. Paul City Ry. Co., 47 Minn. 543; Anderson v. Minneapolis St. Ry. Co., 42 Minn. 490; Cincinnati v. Snell, 54 Oh. St. 197; Dahl v. Milwaukee, 65 Wis. 371; Humbird v. Union, 110 Mo. 76; Swain v. Fourteenth, 93 Cal. 179; Baltimore v. McDonnell, 43 Md. 534; Little v. Street, 78 Mich. 205; Ellick v. Metropolitan, 15 App.Div. (N.Y.) 556; Winters v. Kansas City, 99 Mo. 509, 519. In the absence of statute or ordinance, the question what was, under the circumstances, a reasonable rate of speed was for the jury. East St. Louis v. Burns, 77 Ill.App. 529; Shea v. St. Paul City Ry. Co., 50 Minn. 395; Holmgren v. Twin City R.T. Co., 61 Minn. 85; Howard v. St. Paul, M. & M. Ry. Co., 32 Minn. 214; Fullerton v. Metropolitan, 37 App.Div. (N.Y.) 386. See also Bittner v. Crosstown, 153 N.Y. 76; Boyer v. St. Paul City Ry. Co., 54 Minn. 127; 2 Shearman & R. Neg. § 485 B.; Cooke v. Baltimore, 80 Md. 551; Newark v. Block, 55 N.J.L. 605; Flewelling v. Lewiston, 89 Me. 585; Pittsburgh v. Krouse, 30 Oh. St. 222.
Plaintiff was not guilty of contributory negligence. Thurber v. Harlem, 60 N.Y. 326, 332; Loucks v. Chicago, M. & St. P. Ry. Co., 31 Minn. 526; Garrity v. Detroit, 112 Mich. 369; Jetter v. New York, 2 Abb. Dec. 458; Langhoff v. Milwaukee, 19 Wis. 515; Thoresen v. La Crosse, 87 Wis. 597; Piper v. Chicago, 77 Wis. 247, 255; 2 Thompson, Neg. 1172; Johnson v. St. Paul City Ry. Co., 67 Minn. 260; Watson v. Minneapolis St. Ry. Co., 53 Minn. 551; Newson v. New York, 29 N.Y. 383; Gordon v. Grand, 40 Barb. 546; St. Louis v. Dunn, 78 Ill. 197; Cleveland v. Harrington, 131 Ind. 426; Robinson v. Western, 48 Cal. 409. Under any theory the case was at least for the jury. Kostuch v. St. Paul City Ry. Co., 78 Minn. 459; Lang v. Houston, 75 Hun, 151; Chicago v. O'Connor, 119 Ill. 586; McClain v. Brooklyn, 116 N.Y. 459; Erd v. City of St. Paul, 22 Minn. 443; Hooper v. Great Northern Ry. Co., 80 Minn. 400; Hendrickson v. Great Northern Ry. Co., 52 Minn. 340; Struck v. Chicago, M. & St. P. Ry. Co., 58 Minn. 298; Consolidated v. Glynn, 59 N.J.L. 432; Carroll v. Minnesota Valley R. Co., 14 Minn. 42 (57); Fonda v. St. Paul City Ry. Co., 71 Minn. 438. Plaintiff had a right to suppose the car would slacken its speed and stop when it had been signaled. Callahan v. Philadelphia, 184 Pa. St. 425, 427; Walls v. Rochester, 92 Hun, 581; Wharton, Neg. § 420; Beach, Con. Neg. § 163; Hoye v. Chicago, 62 Wis. 666; Farrell v. Waterbury, 60 Conn. 239; Allen v. Maine, 82 Me. 111, 117; Bronson v. Oakes, 40 U.S. App. 413; Grand Trunk Ry. Co. v. Ives, 144 U.S. 408, 417; Ernst v. Hudson, 35 N.Y. 9.
Action for damages sustained by plaintiff while attempting to take passage on one of defendant's Interurban cars. Plaintiff had a verdict. After motion for judgment upon the verdict, or for a new trial in the alternative, which was denied, defendant appeals.
In adopting the required inferences in favor of the verdict, the following facts must be accepted as true on this appeal: The Interurban electric line between St. Paul and Minneapolis runs over University avenue upon double tracks, the eastern-bound cars running on the south and the western-bound cars on the north track, making it necessary for St. Paul passengers approaching a car from the north side of the avenue to cross both tracks in order to enter the car gate, which opens on the south side on the stoppage of the car. At the first stopping place west of the Minnesota Transfer bridge there is a crosswalk leading from the sidewalk on the north of the avenue transversely across the same to plank platforms, sixteen feet wide, on either side of the car tracks, which were placed there by defendant. There was no sidewalk along the south side of the avenue, and the only purpose of the crosswalk or the plank platforms referred to was the convenience of passengers who had occasion to get on or off the cars at that point. The distance from the north sidewalk to the planking on the south side is sixty-eight feet. At the time of the accident all cars running over the Interurban line were required to stop at this point upon signal, and the public were apprised of this fact by a sign placed upon one of defendant's adjacent electric poles, which read, "Electric trains stop here." There were numerous business places and dwellings in the vicinity, and frequent occasion to stop the cars at that place, which is commonly known as "Minnesota Transfer."
At the time in question the plaintiff had been visiting friends near the Minnesota Transfer, and had gone to that point from St. Paul on the afternoon in question. Returning about 11 o'clock at night, she and two gentlemen went to the point on the north side of the avenue sidewalk where the plank crosswalk leaves the same for the street-car platforms. At this point an Interurban car coming from Minneapolis was discovered by its headlight approaching, more than seven hundred feet distant. One of the gentlemen (William Ryan) left plaintiff, and ran rapidly across the tracks to the south platform, for the purpose of signaling the car to stop. Plaintiff immediately followed, walking at a quick pace, supposing that she would have ample time to reach the platform before the arrival of the car. Ryan, standing on the platform, signaled the car with his hands in the usual manner several times. As near as the evidence can justify estimates of distances, the car was four hundred feet away when Ryan commenced signaling. The headlight of the car was burning brightly at the time, and enabled the motoneer to see ahead five hundred feet.
The plaintiff, going to the platform, looked in the direction of the approaching car, once between the north rail and the sidewalk, and again while she was passing over the north rail, and says that it seemed to her at both times that the car was slacking speed. The glare of the headlight was so strong that she was unable to distinctly determine either its distance or speed, but was inclined to believe, from the signals that she had seen given for her benefit, that the car was coming to a stop, and, relying upon this fact, and that she would have time to cross the tracks in safety, kept on until at the moment of leaving the south rail she was struck and seriously injured by the approaching car, which was running at the rate of forty-five miles an hour, and was not stopped until three hundred feet beyond the place of the collision. There was evidence tending to show that the maximum rate of speed at this crossing, when no stoppage was to be made, was twenty miles an hour. The car in question had an admitted speed capacity of forty-five miles an hour, and there is nothing improbable in the view that it was running at that rate at the time of the accident.
The serious contention on the part of defendant is that the plaintiff was guilty of contributory negligence in passing in front of the car. If it is so clear, as a matter of law, that plaintiff's conduct was negligent, under the circumstances detailed, it is our duty to set the verdict aside and order a new trial. If not, the jury were the proper arbiters to determine this question, and we have no right to interfere with their conclusion. It must be conceded, in reviewing this record, that the defendant was negligent in disobeying proper signals, and in running its car at a reckless rate of speed over the crossing. Again, at the time the signal to stop was given by...
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