Warren v. Boston Elevated Railway Co.

• Decision Date: 06 April 1927
• Citation: 259 Mass. 226
• Parties: MARY A. WARREN v. BOSTON ELEVATED RAILWAY COMPANY.
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

259 Mass. 226

MARY A. WARREN v. BOSTON ELEVATED RAILWAY COMPANY.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Suffolk.

April 6, 1927

March 11, 1927.

Present: RUGG, C.

J., BRALEY, PIERCE CARROLL, & WAIT, JJ.

Negligence, Street railway: passenger.

Although the ordinary jolts and jerks of a street car in starting or stopping or in going around curves or over switches are among the usual incidents of travel in such cars, and for injuries resulting from such incidents a street railway company is not liable, where evidence at the trial of an action by a woman against the street railway company is that the plaintiff was a strong, active woman that just before a sudden stop of a car, upon which she was she had a firm hold of an iron railing around the fare box at the rear of the car; that before the car stopped it was

"going pretty fast," and that when it stopped her hold was broken and she was thrown five or six feet to the floor of the car with sufficient force to break one of her bones, a verdict for the plaintiff is warranted.

TORT for personal injuries. Writ dated April 15, 1926. In the Superior Court, the action was tried before Hall, C.J. Material evidence is described in the opinion. The chief justice denied a motion by the defendant at the close of the evidence that a verdict be entered in its favor. There was a verdict for the plaintiff in the sum of $4,000. The defendant alleged exceptions.

J.T. Hughes, (H.L. Barrett with him,) for the defendant. G.L. O'Hara, for the plaintiff.

CARROLL, J. This is an action of tort to recover for personal injuries sustained by the plaintiff as the result of alleged negligence of the defendant in bringing the street car on which she was a passenger to a sudden stop.

The plaintiff testified that she was a passenger on a surface car of the high studded type with two doors at each end; that inside the car on both sides was a long seat at each end, with cross seats on each side between; that she sat on the long seat at the end on the right hand side; that the car stopped at School Street and the next stop was Sullivan Street, where she intended to alight; that as the car approached Salem Street, about one hundred and fifty feet from Sullivan Street, she stood up and motioned the conductor to stop and she thought he rang the bell; that as the car went by Salem Street it "was going pretty fast, but she could not say just how fast"; that she walked to the rear of the car and took hold of the railing, which consisted of a square of iron piping around the fare box, and gripped it as tight as she could, "with a firm hold, her thumb underneath and her four fingers over the bar"; that when the car stopped at Sullivan Street there was a "kind of creaking, grinding noise at first, and then a short stop and a kind of rumbling noise," and she was thrown away from the railing; that she tried to grasp it again but could not, and tried to save herself by holding onto a man seated in the long seat, but failed in this "and . . . went beyond him . . . to the end of the long seat, falling on her right knee on the floor"; that her right hip struck the back of the first cross seat from the rear and her knee struck the floor five or six feet from the fare box, and she sustained a fracture of the base of the neck of the right...