Watts v. Borough of Plymouth
| Decision Date | 02 October 1916 |
| Docket Number | 111 |
| Citation | 255 Pa. 185,99 A. 470 |
| Parties | Watts, Appellant, v. Borough of Plymouth |
| Court | Pennsylvania Supreme Court |
Argued April 12, 1916
Appeal, No. 111, January T., 1916, by plaintiff, from judgment of C. P. Luzerne County, February T., 1911, No. 382 refusing to take off compulsory nonsuit in case of Joseph Watts and Anna Watts v. Borough of Plymouth. Affirmed.
Trespass to recover damages for personal injuries. Before BOYLE, J.
The facts appear by the opinion of the Supreme Court.
The lower court entered a compulsory nonsuit which it subsequently refused to take off. Plaintiff appealed.
Error assigned, among others, was in refusing to take off the nonsuit.
Paul J Sherwood, for appellants. -- The defendant was guilty of negligence in maintaining the hole in the street: Kraut v. Frankford & Southwark Philadelphia City Pass. Ry. Co., 160 Pa. 327; Toglatti v. Carrick Borough, 61 Pa.Super. 244; Cox v. Pres., Directors & Co. of the Westchester Turnpike Road, 33 Barb. 419; Sisson v. Philadelphia, 248 Pa. 140.
The plaintiff was free from contributory negligence: Lewis v. Wood, 247 Pa. 545; Thompson v. Bridgewater, 24 Mass. 187; Cox. v. Westchester Turnpike Co., 33 Barb. (New York) 414.
J. Q. Creveling, with him Charles Kuschke, for appellee. -- The plaintiff was contributorily negligent: Hentz v. Borough of Somerset, 2 Pa. Superior Ct. 225; Buzby v. Philadelphia Traction Co., 126 Pa. 559; Del., Lack. & Western R.R. Co. v. Cadow, 120 Pa. 559; Tolan v. Philadelphia, 35 Pa.Super. 311; Burns v. City of Bradford, 137 Pa. 361; Haven v. Pittsburgh & Allegheny Bridge Co., 151 Pa. 620.
Before POTTER, STEWART, MOSCHZISKER, FRAZER and WALLING, JJ.
Plaintiff received her injury while attempting to cross over the main street in the Borough of Plymouth to a point alongside the track of an electric street railway occupying the middle of the street where she intended to board an approaching car. The point where she expected to take the car was not a scheduled stopping place, but, because of greater convenience it afforded to shoppers, cars were allowed to stop at that point, on signal, to receive passengers. The scheduled stopping place was but a short distance above, and there was there a public crossing. The accident occurred between six and seven o'clock on the evening of 9th of October, 1909. The plaintiff had been trading in one of the stores facing on this particular street, almost directly opposite the point where she expected to take the car. She left the store carrying three packages of merchandise in her right arm, and a pail containing other merchandise with her left hand. When she stepped from the store and reached the pavement, it was dark, too dark to permit of her seeing what was immediately about her, but, being entirely familiar with her surroundings from frequent visits to this store, and knowing well of the existence of a public crossing a short distance above, and observing from where she stood on the pavement that the crossing was lighted, for no apparent reason other than to avoid the necessity of following the pavement until she reached the crossing, encumbered as she was she stepped from the pavement into the street. She had proceeded but a little way when she stepped into a depression in the street and fell upon the pail she was carrying, thereby receiving the injury of which she complains. In the immediate neighborhood where she fell there were several depressions in the street, but into which one of these the plaintiff stepped is a fact not clearly disclosed. On cross-examination she admitted that she had often alighted from the car at its regular stopping place; that in going to and from the store on such occasions she had walked up and down the sidewalk leading to and from the store, and that it and the crossing together made a perfectly safe way for her to travel. At the conclusion of the evidence a nonsuit was granted, and the appeal is from the refusal of the court to take it off.
Pedestrians are not restricted to the use of established street crossings when they attempt to pass from one side of the street to the other. They have a right to cross at whatever...
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