Litwinavage v. Schuylkill Railway Co.
Litwinavage v. Schuylkill Railway Co.
Opinion of the Court
Opinion by
A track of the defendant electric railway company, extending from Shenandoah, passes near the entrance to a coal mine of the Philadelphia and Reading Coal and Iron Company. TO' accommodate miners going to and from work, defendant has there a regular stop called “Maple Hill,” where, to facilitate the entrance and exit of passengers, there is, on a level with the track, a platform about four feet wide. At quitting time miners in considerable numbers gather on and about the platform and do some jostling as they board a car. On the afternoon of March 27,1919, plaintiff, a coal miner somewhat crippled by a previous accident, sought to take the car at this stop, and, as it came in, he was shoved back off the platform, and seriously injured. He brought this suit, averring the accident resulted from the negligent manner in which the car approached the platform; and, from judgment entered on a verdict in his favor, defendant took this appeal.
The evidence was conflicting, that for plaintiff was to the effect that the car came to a stop, or nearly to a stop, before reaching the platform, and then, as those nearest.
The lack of a guardrail at the rear of the platform cannot be held the proximate cause of the accident; at most of it was but a concurring cause. So, assuming the platform belonged to the coal company, which was a disputed question, and also assuming such company had been negligent in failing to provide a guardrail, that
Under the facts, as the jury found them, it cannot be affirmed that the accident resulted from the rudeness or misconduct of others on the platform. Its real cause was not the scramble to get aboard but the sudden jerk of the car forward and for that the passengers were not responsible. Their voluntary movement was toward the car and away from plaintiff and it was not their fault that the' sudden starting of the car threw them back upon him. The case of Spagnol v. Pennsylvania Railroad Co., 279 Pa. 205, is not in point; there one passenger was injured by the rudeness of another.
It is difficult to see how a charge of contributoiy negligence can be urged against the plaintiff. He was on the platform moving toward the car with the other miners and was not bound to anticipate that defendant would be guilty of such negligence as to throw them back against him. The platform was made to stand on; that plaintiff was so unfortunate as to be in the back row was not his fault, some one had to be there. Moreover, where, as here, the question of contributory negligence has been fairly submitted to the jury, a verdict for plaintiff will not be set aside on that ground if it can be sustained under any reasonable view of the evidence: see Cramer v. Aluminum Co., 239 Pa. 120, 125; Hastings v. So. Shore R. R. Co., 272 Pa. 212, 215.
The assignments of error are overruled and the judgment is affirmed.
Case-law data current through December 31, 2025. Source: CourtListener bulk data.