Younglove v. Pullman Co.

• Decision Date: 19 September 1913
• Parties: YOUNGLOVE v. PULLMAN CO. et al.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Northern District of New York

207 F. 797

YOUNGLOVE v. PULLMAN CO. et al.

United States District Court, N.D. New York.

September 19, 1913

John Scanlon, of Cohoes, N.Y., for plaintiff.

Jarvis P. O'Brien, of Troy, N.Y., and Visscher, Whalen & Austin of Albany, N.Y., for defendants.

RAY District Judge.

The defendants operate railroad trains running into the depot at Troy, N.Y., made up of both ordinary passenger cars and Pullman parlor cars.

On the 13th day of July, 1910, the plaintiff was a passenger on one of these trains, riding in the Pullman parlor car, which came into the depot shortly before sundown. She had paid both the regular fare and the extra fare for riding in such Pullman car. She had frequently been a passenger on such trains riding in the Pullman car. The porter in charge of this car on the day in question had been on the car on at least one of these trips when the plaintiff was a passenger. On the other occasions another porter was in charge. Miss Younglove is somewhat troubled with defective vision and wears glasses but can see and move about. She has no other physical infirmity. Miss Younglove had been accustomed to request and receive assistance from the porter in alighting but did not make any request on the day in question, although when the train stopped the porter took her umbrella and preceded her out of the car and down the steps to the platform. Miss Younglove was the only passenger in this car. No words passed between the plaintiff and porter. On reaching the platform the porter stepped to one side and stood by the side of the car holding the umbrella. The plaintiff descended the steps, and, as the usual movable step or stool had not been placed on the platform to aid in alighting, the foot and limb of Miss Younglove as her body moved forward, swung backward, she claims, and went down between the lower step and the concrete platform and she was thrown forward on her face, striking on the platform, and she sustained some bruises and a severe sprain of the ankle.

The evidence was sufficient to show and justify the jury in finding that it was quite usual for the defendant companies to place a movable step or box for passengers alighting from the Pullman cars on or very near the edge of the platform to break the distance between the lower step of the car and such platform and thus make the descent more easy and safe. Miss Younglove testified, and she was not contradicted, that such a step, stool, or box had always been provided when she alighted, and that she had been a frequent traveler on the road. When at the station platform, the distance from the ground, tracks, to the lower step of the car is 29 1/2 inches, from the lower step to the level of the concrete platform is 13 1/4 inches, and from the edge of the lower step to the edge of the concrete platform 17 1/2 inches. That is, it is 6 inches from the edge of the concrete platform out to a line perpendicular to the edge of the lower step. The risers of the steps to the car itself are each 6 inches high. The result is that a person alighting from one of these cars at this Troy station stepped down 6 inches from step to step four steps, and then to reach the platform (if no movable step, box or stool was provided) had to step outwardly more than 6 inches and downwardly some 13 1/2 inches to reach the platform. The movable steps usually placed, and with Miss Younglove always placed, were 14 inches long and 10 wide and 9 inches in height, thus breaking this distance from the lower step of the car to the platform, or dividing it and making the steps from the platform of the car to the platform of the station substantially uniform.

It requires no argument to show that the descent from the car to the platform of the station would be more or less difficult and dangerous without such movable step or block. If, then, the defendant companies had recognized this difficulty and this danger and had provided this movable step or stool and usually used it for the ease and safety of passengers when alighting, and had always provided and placed it for Miss Younglove or when she and others with her alighted at this station, it was fairly a question for the jury whether or not the defendants were guilty of negligence in withdrawing it or failing to use it on the occasion in question. The court charged:

'Now, gentlemen, in the first place, you are to find, and it is a question for you to determine, for you to say, whether or not the defendants here were guilty of negligence on this occasion in question. You are to determine, first, whether this contention to which I have referred is true, correct. Have the defendants by a custom, their usual course of business in placing this stool, this temporary movable stool for passengers to alight, have they recognized the necessity for it and that this was a difficult and dangerous place to alight without it, and that it needed it and was required for the safety of passengers? Was that true? If so, and then if they had followed it up by placing that stool usually, so that the plaintiff had learned to rely upon it and she had the right to rely upon it, why then, of course, it would be negligence on the part of the railroad company to suddenly take it away without warning or notice and without any indication to the plaintiff or travelers accustomed to it that it was gone. I said it would be negligence. What I mean is it would be evidence of negligence, from which you might find negligence on the part of the railroad company. I do not say it would be negligence as matter of law. It would be for you to say. It would justify you in finding negligence.'

Miss Younglove, the plaintiff, testified that when this train stopped at the Troy station she arose and followed the porter out and down the steps of the car and made the usual step she would have made assuming the temporary or movable step to be in place; that she was looking at the porter, expecting him to assist her, and did not look to see or observe whether the temporary or movable step was in place or not. In short, the substance of her statement was that she assumed from what had gone before and what had been universally, so far as she was concerned, done on other occasions, and from what the porter did on this occasion as he preceded her with her umbrella, that he had placed this movable or temporary step or stool in its usual place, and that it was there, and that the porter was there to assist her as had been done before, and that her eyes were on the porter, and that she made the step assuming the temporary stepping block or stool to be in place.

The defendants contend that this action on her part constituted contributory negligence, as matter of law, and that the court should have directed a verdict for the defendants. The plaintiff contends that such action on her part was not, under the then existing circumstances and in view of the action of the porter and of what had uniformly been done at this station on all former occasions, necessarily contributory negligence, and that the question was a fair one for the jury and properly submitted, and that, the jury having found a verdict in her favor, it should not be disturbed. On this question of negligence the court, amongst other things, charged as follows:

'Now as I said, or started to say, of course the defendants contend: First, that they were not negligent at all, not guilty of any negligence; that the placing of this stool was a mere matter of convenience, put there by the porter to aid people in getting on and off; that there was no duty imposed upon them; and they ask the court to charge that its absence was not negligence or that the duty of putting it there was not imposed upon them by law. I will say to you, gentlemen, the placing of a stool there, or a movable step, is not a duty imposed by any statute, so far as I am aware, or by law, but the railroad company was bound to do those things reasonably necessary to make the entrance to the trains and the egress from them reasonably safe, to use all reasonable, well-known appliances that would aid to make that ingress and egress from those cars reasonably safe so far as they could and so far as such appliances were known. That would be a duty imposed, and it is for you to say, gentlemen, whether this was such a difficult and dangerous place as to make it the duty of the railroad company to supply some means, or those means which they had at hand, and whether they had recognized it and so were guilty of negligence in not putting something there, supplying something, either the stool which they had at hand or something else, to make egress from this car reasonably safe, and so discharge their duty.' And on the question of contributory negligence the court, amongst other things, charged as follows:

'If, however, the defendants here have satisfied you, by a fair preponderance of evidence, that this plaintiff was guilty of contributory negligence, even if the defendants were negligent, if she was guilty of contributory negligence (negligence which contributed to the injury in any degree), then of course this plaintiff cannot recover. The defendants contend here that even if you say it was their duty to place the stool, and even if you find they were negligent in not placing the stool, still they say that you should find that this plaintiff was guilty of contributory negligence in that she did not look to see that the stool was not placed, and that she was negligent in not discovering that it was not placed, not looking to see, paying attention to it, and the defendants contend that if she had looked, if

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