Cleaver v. Pennsylvania Co.
Cleaver v. Pennsylvania Co.
Opinion of the Court
Opinion by
The plaintiff was a passenger on a train of the defendant company, accompanied by a friend. Their destination was Economy. When the conductor collected the tickets, the plaintiff requested that he notify him of the approach of the train to the station, as he was a stranger in that locality. This the conductor promised to do, but notice was not given and the plaintiff was not aware that the train had arrived at Economy until his attention was called to the fact after the train had started. He immediately requested the brakeman to' stop the train, as it had only proceeded a few feet at that time and was moving very slowly past the station platform. This request was refused, with the information that he would have to go to the next stop. The train was stopped at a flag station called Logan. There was neither a passenger station nor agent at that point, the only indication of a stopping place being an open shelter shed, a light and a platform. The railroad tracks were situated along the bank of the Ohio river at the foot of a high bluff. The time was about six o’clock in the evening of December 6th. It was very dark and was raining. When the train came to a stop at Logan, the defendant and his companion, Fitzgerald, were told by the conductor, or a man in uniform on the platform to get off. As no place of shelter was apparent, the plaintiff asked that he be taken to a station where he
The law involved in the case is stated in Malone v. Pittsburgh & Lake Erie R. R. Co., 152 Pa. 390; Ham v. Delaware & Hudson Canal Co., 155 Pa. 548; Reimard v.
The latter case is quite similar to that under consideration except that the passenger in the case cited could not find his ticket when it was called for by the conductor, and for that reason was not permitted to alight at his destination, but was carried to the next station and there put off the train. There was also in that case evidence that there was a public road within sixty feet of the platform, and that less than six hundred feet from the point where the passenger stood on the platform of the station there was a house standing by the public road in plain view from the station; that there were several persons on the platform from whom he could have inquired his way, and that there was a cinder path on both sides of the track from the station to a point beyond the place where Ms body was found between the tracks after he had started to walk back to the station at which he wished to alight. On such a state of facts, it was held that the case was one for the jury, and that a judgment for the defendant non obstante veredicto could not have been properly entered.
The question therefore whether the plaintiff should have been dismissed from the car on a very dark and cold night at a station situated such as that described by the witnesses, and whether the plaintiff was guilty of contributory negligence in undertaking to escape the embarrassment and difficulty in which he was placed by such conduct of the defendant’s agent were questions for the jury. There is no complaint that they were not fairly submitted, and the verdict should be sustained. Judgment affirmed.
Reference
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- Cleaver v. Pennsylvania Company
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- Syllabus
- Negligence — Railroads—Passenger ejection from train — Walking on track — Contributory negligence — Case for jury. In an action against a railroad company, to recover damages for injuries to a passenger, alleged to have been wrongfully ejected from a train at night at a flag station, and subsequently injured on the tracks while walking to his destination, the case is for the jury to decide whether or not the plaintiff should have been dismissed from the train on a dark, cold night at a station, where there were no passenger facilities, and whether he was guilty of contributory negligence in walking up the tracks of the defendant, instead of using a public road some distance away, the existence of which he was not informed.