Whiteacre v. Boston Elevated Ry. Co.
| Decision Date | 14 March 1922 |
| Citation | 241 Mass. 163,134 N.E. 640 |
| Parties | WHITEACRE v. BOSTON ELEVATED RY. CO. |
| Court | United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
Exceptions from Superior Court, Suffolk County; Hugo A. Dubuque, Judge.
Action by Emily J. Whiteacre against the Boston Elevated Railway Company for injuries sustained while alighting from defendant's car. Directed verdict for defendant, and plaintiff brings exceptions. Exceptions sustained.
The only exception was to the direction of the verdict on the ground that plaintiff had failed to make out a case.
Pater J. Donaghue, Harold R. Donaghue and Wyman & Brier, all of Boston, for plaintiff.
Abraham E. Pinanski and George E. Morris, both of Boston, for defendant.
The plaintiff testified in substance as follows: On the day of the accident she was a passenger of the defendant in a semiconvertible car in which she sat in one of the rear cross-seats. She was accompanied by Miss Mary Wakelin. As the car approached the usual stopping place in the Harvard Square subway she left her seat, her companion walking ahead, and went toward the rear door. Before they reached the door a man got between her and Miss Wakelin. The plaintiff took hold of one of the hanger-straps by one hand. As the car slowed down she let go and ‘went to step from the floor of the car’ into the vestibule; just as she did this the car stopped with a sudden jerk and threw her forward against the cash box, and she fell. There was but one stop. When the car gave this jerk, it was coming to the stop, and it was the stopping of the car that caused her fall. At the same time she saw a thick-set man ‘knocked back against the middle of the vestibule under the window.’ He was thrown against the side of the car.
Miss Wakelin testified that when the car came into the Harvard Square station she got up to get out before it stopped, and when it stopped she alighted from the car and turned around to see if the plaintiff was coming. As she stood on the station platform she next saw the--
On cross-examination she also testified that the car had stopped, the door had been opened and that she had alighted and taken a step or two from the car, and turned around to see where the plaintiff was. When she turned around the car had just started, and the plaintiff then was standing on the floor in the rear vestibule beside the money box. While the cross-examination may have affected the weight of this evidence, it did not destroy its probative effect.
Evidence was offered by the defendant that the accident was caused by the plaintiff's turning her ankle and that the car did not come to a standstill and then start again.
A verdict was ordered for the defendant, subject to the plaintiff's exception.
It is not contended that the plaintiff was not entitled to go to the jury upon the issue of her own due care.
It is assumed that if the...
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Cook v. Cole
...408, 411, 164 N. E. 374), and, a fortiori, was not bound by it where, as here, it was contradicted. See Whiteacre v. Boston Elevated Railway, 241 Mass. 163, 165, 134 N. E. 640;Newman v. Levinson, 266 Mass. 264, 267, 165 N. E. 122. The evidence could be found to show more than mere acquiesce......
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Alamo v. Del Rosario
...her by a premature start; she was allowed to recover on the theory that it had merely slowed down. In Whiteacre v. Boston Elevated Railway Company, 241 Mass. 163, 134 N.E. 640, a plaintiff who had testified that she was thrown by the stopping of a car was allowed to go to the jury on the ba......
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Gleason v. Mann
...and she could rely upon the defendant's evidence that this subject was never discussed between them. White-acre v. Boston Elevated Railway Co., 241 Mass. 163, 134 N.E. 640;O'Brien v. Freeman, 299 Mass. 20, 11 N.E.2d 582;Baker v. Hemingway Brothers Interstate Trucking Co., 299 Mass. 76, 12 N......
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Joughin v. Fed. Motor Transp. Co.
...as she is entitled to the benefit of any more favorable explanation of the accident presented by the evidence. Whiteacre v. Boston Elevated Railway, 241 Mass. 163, 134 N. E. 640;Boni v. Goldstein, 276 Mass. 372, 376, 177 N. E. 581. Consequently, if her testimony, though so aided, demonstrat......