Font v. Porto Rico Railway, Light & Power Co.
Font v. Porto Rico Railway, Light & Power Co.
Opinion of the Court
delivered the opinion of the court. This is an action for damages for personal injuries to a hoy.
Briefly, the complaint alleges that the plaintiff is a mitt, of about ten years of age, residing in San Juan, and that the defendant is a corporation organized and doing business
The defendant answered the allegations of the complaint specifically and fully, admitting the fact of the accident, but denying that there had been negligence in the operation of its car, or that it had authorized the placing, of the hoards at the place of the accident, or that it was responsible for their being .placed there, or for their condition. It further alleged as matters of special defense (a) that the accident suffered by the plaintiff and the injuries he received as a reason thereof were due exclusively to his own fault and negligence, and (b) that even in case the motorman of the company had been negligent, the contributory fault and negligence of the plaintiff contributed to the proximate cause of the accident.
At the trial both parties introduced their evidence and on August 1, 1913, the court rendered judgment dismissing the complaint without special imposition of costs. From the said judgment the plaintiff took the present appeal.
As we have seen, the plaintiff charged the defendant with two distinct acts of negligence, namely, in the operation of the car and in the placing of the boards. We will consider them in the order in which they were presented.
The evidence as to the manner in which the accident occurred was contradictory and the trial court concluded that it was shqwn that “the plaintiff, who for some time before the accident occurred had been playing with other boys around the place where he was run over, attempted to run across the
We have carefully studied all the evidence introduced. Two witnesses for the plaintiff described the accident in more or less the same 'manner as it is described in the complaint. The witnesses for the defendant maintain that the accident occurred in a different way- — -that is, that the plaintiff was playing and with other boys ran across the track when ■the car was already in motion and very close and it was impossible to stop it notwithstanding all the eff orts of the motorman to do so.
Therefore, the evidence is contradictory and .the district court gave credence to the testimony of the witnesses for the defendant. ' The plaintiff has not shown that the trial court was influenced by passion, prejudice, or partiality, nor on examining the evidence do we find that the court committed any manifest error in weighing the same. This being the case, in accordance with the jurisprudence repeatedly laid down, we must accept the conclusions of the trial court as correct and therefore it is impossible to hold that the accident which caused the loss of the plaintiff’s foot was due to the negligence of the defendant in the operation of the electric car.
Let us see whether the defendant was negligent in connection with the condition of the boards.'
The evidence shows that the boards were not placed there by the defendant, but by the owner of a- certain mercantile establishment located in front of the place where the acci
Nor is the evidence clear as to the nature of the defect and as to whether it could or could not have been noticed and corrected in time by the defendant company. But assuming that the defect was evident and that the defendant company .should have remedied it, even then we find that the evidence shows, according to the versions accepted, as true by the trial court, that the plaintiff did not use the boards to cross from the highway to the store to transact business, for which purpose they were placed there, but used them for playing around the cars, and while the plaintiff was engaged with other boys in that perilous diversion he was so unfortunate as to be struck by the electric car of the defendant without any fault on the part of the motorman in charge of the car. Witness Dimas Antolin testified, among other things,(page 45 of the transcript), that “about an hour before the accident he was watching the boy Font at that place; that he was playing with other boys; that at times they would lie on the track when the ear was approaching and say to each other, ‘Look out, it will strike you,’ ‘It will not strike me at all,’ and the witness thought that an accident would happen to them.” Witness Mariano Figueroa also testified, among other things (page 49 of the transcript), that “while he was in the store in front of the one belonging to Fernando Carras-quillq on March 29 he saw three boys amusing themselves by playing on the pavement in front of the store and .when the car was approaching and very close they attempted to cross the track, the first two succeeding and the last falling.”
This being the case, in accordance with jurisprudence the
‘! One who, being upon a highway merely- for play, meets with an injury occasioned by (a defect therein, cannot maintain an action for damages therefor against the city or town bound to keep the highway in repair for travelers.” Margaret Tighe v. City of Lowell, 119 Mass., 472.
“Plaintiff received an injury from a defective highway while using such highway for the express purpose of horse-racing. Held, that no action lay against the city whose duty it was to keep the highway in repair. ’ ’ McCarthy v. Portland, 67 Me., 167, 24 A. R., 23.
“A man of full age playing with a dog on a sidewalk and not going anywhere is not so using the walk as to entitle him to recover for injuries caused by defects therein.” Jackson v. Greenville, 27 L. R. A., 527.
Summarizing, we will say that a careful examination of the case in all its details shows that the plaintiff received the injury of which he complains by reason of his own fault and negligence and not by reason of the fault and negligence of the defendant. But even though it could be concluded that the defendant company was negligent to a certain extent in regard to the placing of the boards, the contributory negligence of the plaintiff is so clear that it effectively bars the rendition of a judgment in his favor.
We will conclude by citing the following jurisprudence established in a decision of the Supreme Court of Maine, wherein a case very similar to the present one was decided:
“In a case where a child ten years old, while attempting to cross an electric railway track in a street, was run over by a car, and where it appears that the car, at the time she attempted to cross, was in plain sight of her, and could not have been much more than its own length from her, and where it is manifest, either that she did not look to see if the car was approaching, or that, if she looked, she must have seen the ear, held, that her contributory negligence is a bar to her recovery against the railway company. Her act can*13 bardly be regarded otherwise than a result of a sudden unthinking impulse, or of reckless daring.
“Though children are not by law holden to the exercise of the same extent of care that adults are, and though the age and intelligence of a party are important factors in determining whether due care has been used, yet the plaintiff in this case was bound to use that degree or extent of care which ordinarily prudent children of her age and intelligence are accustomed to use under like circumstances.
“Held, that the plaintiff clearly failed to use that care which a child of her intelligence should use.” Colomb v. Street Railway, 100 Me., 418.
The appeal should he dismissed and the judgment appealed from affirmed.
Affirmed.
Case-law data current through December 31, 2025. Source: CourtListener bulk data.