Meyonberg v. Pennsylvania R. Co.
Opinion of the Court
Plaintiff appeals from a “judgment of nonsuit” granted at the close of the presentation of his case. Plaintiff, the sole witness to testify, asserted that he was a passenger traveling from New York to Long Branch, N. J., on a train operated by defendant, a common carrier. Reading a newspaper, he was sitting in an aisle seat in the rear of the train.
Plaintiff further testified that the second of the two cardboards, on which cardboards the game was being played, had been supplied by a member of the train crew at about the same time as the three men joined the game; and that the trainman, walking through the car several times during the course of the game, had had to “brush up” against him to get through that particular part of the car.
The theory upon which the court granted the nonsuit was that the playing of cards is not inherently dangerous, and that, regardless of the degree of care required of defendant, the burden of proof that the injury arose out of the negligence of defendant’s servants lay with plaintiff. The court said, “I don’t think I can spell out and leave to conjecture on the part of the jury what caused the elbow to strike the man in the eye. It is up to the plaintiff to prove that and he has not done it.”
Jurisdiction in this case stems from diversity of citizenship. This being so, the substantive law to be applied is that of New Jersey, where the cause of action apparently arose.
Two questions, then, are presented: (1) Could the court below hold as a matter of law that plaintiff had not introduced evidence from which a jury might reasonably determine what caused the injurer’s elbow to strike plaintiff in the eye? and (2) if plaintiff did meet the burden of proof as to the cause of the injury, was there a jury question whether defendant had failed to meet the standard of care defendant owed to plaintiff?
We believe that, in deeming conjectural what caused injurer’s elbow to strike plaintiff’s eye, the court below inadvertently overlooked the testimony of plaintiff that he was struck “when the train started up again.” On the basis of that statement alone, a jury might reasonably have inferred that it was the starting of the train which led to the injury. See Dickinson v. Erie R. Co., 1914, 85 N.J.L. 586, 588, 90 A. 305, in which the court reiterated the principle that, to warrant a nonsuit or a directed verdict, something more than the mere weight of the evidence must be involved; and cf. Deschamps v. L. Bamberger & Co., 1942, 128 N.J.L. 527, 529, 27 A.2d 3, 4, and Shipp v. Thirty-Second Street Corporation, 1943, 130 N.J.L. 518, 523, 33 A.2d 852, 854.
There is no evidence that, on this particular occasion, the starting of the train was performed negligently. To prevail, therefore, plaintiff had to establish that a jury could have found defendant negligent, under all the circumstances, for the failure of defendant’s agent to protect plaintiff adequately against the risk of being injured by the standing card players.
Section 348 of the Restatement of the Law of Torts provides, inter alia, that a public utility is liable to members of the public for bodily harm caused them by accidental or negligent acts of third persons, if the public utility by the exercise of reasonable care could have (a) discovered that such acts were about to be done and (b) protected the members of the public by controlling the conduct of the third persons or giving a warning adequate to enable avoidance of the harm. Applying this principle to the case sub judice, we note that a jury could have reasonably found that the accidental (or negligent) act of the injurer was foreseeable by the trainman. Not unfamiliar with the fact that trains when set in motion will often jerk, as a result of which irregular motion an individual standing in the aisle might well be thrown off balance, the trainman could reasonably have been found negligent by a jury for his failure to order the standing card players to take seats or otherwise to eliminate the possibility that they would be thrown against nearby passengers such as the plaintiff. If New Jersey law is in substantial agreement with Section 348 of the Restatement of the Law of Torts, we believe it necessarily follows that plaintiff had the right to a jury determination whether the facts established a violation of defendant’s duty to him.
The New Jersey Annotations to the Restatement of the Law of Torts state that New Jersey courts are “substantially in accord” with Section 348. Our analysis of
New Jersey lays upon a common carrier the duty of using a “high degree of care” for the safety of the carrier’s passengers. See Spalt v. Eaton, 1937, 118 N.J.L. 327, 330, 192 A. 576, 578, and cases cited therein, affirmed 1938, 199 N.J.L. 343, 196 A. 736; and see Kinsey v. Hudson & Manhattan R. Co., 1943, 130 N.J.L. 285, 288, 32 A.2d 497, 498, affirmed 1944, 131 N.J.L. 161, 35 A.2d 888. This “high degree of care” was interpreted to mean “a degree of care commensurate with the risk of danger,” in New Jersey Fidelity, etc., Ins. Co. v. Lehigh Valley R. Co., 1918, 92 N.J.L. 467, 470, 105 A. 206, 207, certiorari denied 1919, 249 U.S. 600, 39 S.Ct. 258, 63 L.Ed. 796; see also Nazarro v. Hudson & Manhattan R. Co., 1940, 125 N.J.L. 108, 111, 14 A.2d 521, 523, affirmed 1941, 125 N.J.L. 509, 17 A.2d 173. With these principles in mind, we need not inquire whether there is any inherent danger in card playing which is unaccompanied by other factors; but rather we direct our analysis to whether there was a demonstrable risk created by three individuals playing cards while standing in the aisle and whose attention was so diverted as to raise substantial doubt whether, in the event that the train swayed ■or jerked, they would exercise due care to •avoid physical contact with passengers in the vicinity. We, are not prepared to say as a matter of law that no such risk existed, nor that a trainman aware of the game and compelled to inch his way through the congested area did not have reasonable notice of that risk to the plaintiff. “The rule supported by authority is that when a passen.ger shows that he was injured * * * through some act or omission of the car-Tier’s servant, which might have been prevented by due care, then the jury have the right to infer negligence, unless the carrier proves that due care was exercised.” Whalen v. Consolidated Traction Co., 1898, 61 N.J.L. 606, 609, 40 A. 645, 646, 41 L.R.A. 836, 68 Am.St.Rep. 723, quoted in Spalt v. Eaton, supra, and see Falzarano v. Delaware L. & W. R. Co., 1937, 119 N.J.L. 76, 82, 83, 194 A. 75, 78, 79. On its facts, the case at bar would appear to be no less strong than the Kinsey case, supra, in which the trier of the facts was permitted to decide whether an unprovoked assault on a passenger by an intoxicated fellow passenger subjected the carrier to liability, even though the carrier’s employee did not witness the incident and may not even have seen the assailant enter the train. In the course of its opinion, the court which decided the Kinsey case cited Miller v. West Jersey etc. R. Co., 1904, 71 N.J.L. 363, 59 A. 13, a case on which defendant has relied strongly, as standing for the principle that the carrier would be liable if the specific tortious act was preceded by something which suggested the likelihood, or at least the possibility, of its taking place.
We conclude, therefore, that the judgment of the court below must be reversed and the cause remanded for a new trial.
Plaintiff testified that the train was “very well crowded.” Whether there were vacant seats at the time of the injury does not appear in the record. We note, however, that the train had stopped at least at one station.
At the trial in the court below, no evidence was introduced as to where the
At the first trial of the Miller case, the verdict was in favor of the plaintiff. On the appeal cited above,. 1904, 71 N.J.L. 363, 59 A. 13, a- rule to show-cause was made absolute, on the ground that there was nothing to suggest the possibility of danger to the plaintiff. Subsequently the plaintiff was allowed to amend his declaration so as to count upon the negligence of defendant in failing to protect him from the conduct of employees of another railroad. Defendant made a motion to vacate the order permitting amendment of the declaration. Defendant’s motion was denied; 1908, 76 N.J.L. 282, 70 A. 175. Defendant then demurred to tbe amended declaration. In a brief per curiam opinion containing language apropos to tbe case at bar, tbe New Jersey Supreme Court overruled tbe demurrer. 1909, 71 A. 1113. On tbe trial which ensued, plaintiff was nonsuited for failure to prove tbe facts alleged in his declaration, and the judgment was affirmed on appeal. 1910, 79 N.J.L. 499, 76 A. 973.
Dissenting Opinion
(dissenting).
There is no quarrel with the majority opinion upon the propositions of law cited. It is granted that a public utility has an affirmative duty to take reasonable care to protect its business guests from harm. But that does not make the utility an insurer of the safety of its guests which it is submitted the majority comes pretty close to doing in this case. This dissent is based upon disagreement with the majority concerning the application of the general rule of law to the facts here.
Certainly the ordinary social card game is not an occupátion fraught with physical danger to others, whatever pecuniary risks may be involved for the participants. There is no charge in this case that the conduct of the card players previous to the alleged accident was boisterous or otherwise disorderly, except for the fact that one of them in bending over, had touched or bumped the plaintiff. There is no statement that any railroad employees saw this touching. The plaintiff evidently did not think the danger important enough to protest to any member of the train crew. Even if the card players had been engaged in disorder, this would not be enough to charge responsibility for that disorder to the defendant unless the latter had reasonable means of knowing of it so that suitable precautions could be taken. Out of these facts here it seems to me that there is nothing to give notice to the defendant of any possible source of danger to other passengers from the activities of these card players. There being no indication of danger, there is no negligence in failing to provide protection. One is not charged to take precautions against things' which, in the exercise of reasonable care, he has no way of knowing exist.
The rule applied by the majority would' seem to make a carrier responsible for any bumps suffered by sitting passengers from those standing in aisles. In other words, allowing people to stand in the aisle becomes liability creating conduct; at any rate, unless the train crew can ascertain constantly that the standing passengers are giving full attention to the maintaining of their equilibrium upon starts and stops. I do not suggest that the majority opinion-would espouse such a doctrine as a matter of law, but it seems to me the practical' effect of the ruling in this particular set of facts. I think the judgment of the District Court was correct and should be affirmed.
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