FOOTNOTES:
[349] Damont v. N. O. & C. Rw., 9 Lou. Ann. 441; Ill. C. Rw. v. Able, 59 Ill. 131; Redfield on Railways, vol. ii., 276.
[350] Hobbs v. L. & S. W. Rw., L. R., 10 Q. B. 111.
[351] Mobile, etc., Rw. v. McArthur, 43 Miss. 180.
[352] Farewell v. G. T. R., 15 U. C. C. P. 427.
[353] Georgia Rw. v. McCurdy, 45 Ga. 288.
[354] Chicago, etc., Rw. v. Randolph, 53 Ill. 510.
[355] Damont v. N. O. & C. Rw. 9 Lou. Ann. 441; Lucas v. T. & N. B. Rw., 6 Gray, 64; but see Ill. C. Rw. v. Able, 59 Ill. 131.
[356] Penn. Rw. v. Kilgore, 32 Penn. St. 292.
[357] Filer v. N. Y. C., 49 N. Y. 47; Loyd v. Hannibal, etc., Rw., 53 Mo. 509.
[358] Ingalls v. Bills, 9 Met. 1; Eldridge v. Long Is. Rw., 1 Sandf. 89; Rw. v. Aspell, 23 Penn. St. 147.
[359] Columbus, etc., Rw. v. Powell, 40 Ind. 37.
[360] Tebbutt v. Bristol & Ex. R. Co., L. R., 6 Q. B. 73; Stiles v. Cardiff Steam Nav. Co., 33 L. J. (N. S.), Q. B. 310.
[361] Smith v. Great Eastern Rw., L. R., 2 C. P. 4; Barrett v. Malden & Melrose Rw., 3 Allen, 101.
[362] People v. Jillson, 3 Parker C. C. 234.
[363] Fulton v. Grand Trunk Rw., 17 U. C. Q. B. 433.
[364] Hurst v. G. W. R., 19 C. B. (N. S.) 310.
[365] Pittsburgh, F. W., etc., Rw. v. Hinds, 7 Am. Reg. (N. S.) 14; S. C., 53 Pa. St. 512.
[366] Redfield on Railways, vol. ii., p. 234.
[367] Vinton v. Middlesex Rw., 11 Allen, 306.
[368] Hodges on Railways, 553; 5th edit., 585.
[369] Pittsburgh, etc., v. Pillow, 7 Leg. Gaz. 13; Sup. Ct. Pa.
[370] Pittsburgh, F. W., etc., Rw. v. Hinds, 7 Am. Reg. (N. S.) 14; S. C., 53 Pa. St. 512.
[371] Flint v. Norwich, etc., Transportation Co., 34 Conn. 554.
[372] Putnam v. Broadway, etc., Rw., 55 N. Y. 108.
[373] Patteson, J., in Hawcroft v. G. N. R., 16 Jur. 196.
[374] Hodges on Railways, 553.
[375] Jackson v. Metropolitan Rw., L. R., 10 C. P. 49.
[376] Westchester Rw. v. Miles, 55 Penn. St. 209.
[377] Chicago & N. W. v. Williams, 55 Ill. 185.
[378] Day v. Owen, 5 Mich. 520.
[379] Chamberlain v. Chandler, 3 Mason, 242; Nieto v. Clark, 1 Clifford, 145.
[380] Bass v. C. & N. W. Rw., 36 Wis. 450.
[381] Bass v. Chicago & N. W. Rw., 36 Wis. 450.
[382] Redfield on Railways, vol. ii., p. 282; but see Davis v. Kansas City Rw., 53 Mo. 317.
[383] Fulton v. G. T. R., 17 U. C. Q. B. 433.
[384] Toledo, P., & W. Rw. v. Patterson, 63 Ill. 304.
[385] Bridges v. N. London Rw., L. R., 6 Q. B. 377.
[386] Curtis v. G. T. R., 12 C. P. (U. C.), 89.
[387] Maples v. N. Y. & N. H. Rw., 38 Conn. 557.
[388] Townsend v. N. Y. C., 56 N. Y. 295; Hamilton v. N. Y. C., 51 N. Y. 100; but see Pittsburgh, etc., v. Hennigh, 39 Ind. 509; Palmer v. Charlotte, etc., Rw., 3 S. C. 580.
[389] Williamson v. G. T. R., 17 C. P. (U. C.), 615.
[390] Kline v. Cent. Pac. Rw., 37 Cal. 400.
[391] Stephen v. Smith, 29 Vt. 160.
[392] Bass v. C. & N. W. Rw., 36 Wis. 463.
[393] Holmes v. Doane, 3 Gray, 328.
[394] Hagan v. Providence & W. Rw., 3 Rhode Island, 88.
[395] Bannon v. Baltimore & O. R. R., 24 Md. 108; Baltimore & O. R. R. v. State, Ib. 271.
[396] Hagan v. Prov. & W. Rw., 3 Rhode Island, 88.
[397] Ill., etc., Rw. v. Sutton, 53 Ill. 397.
[398] Penn. Rw. Co. v. Vandiver, 42 Penn. St. 365.
[399] Glover v. London & S. W. Rw., 3 Q. B. 25.
[400] Huntsman v. G. W. R., 20 U. C. Q. B. 24.
[401] Davis v. G. W. R., 20 U. C. Q. B. 27, and Life of Lord Nelson.
[402] Crocker v. New London, Will., & Pat. Rw., 24 Conn. 249.
[403] The Queen v. Frere, 4 E. & B. 598; Moore v. Metropolitan Rw., 8 Q. B. 36.
[404] Dearden v. Townsend, 12 Jur. (N. S.), 120; 35 L. J. Q. B. (N. S.), 98.
[405] Jennings v. G. N. R., 1 L. R. Q. B., 7.
[406] The State v. Goold, 53 Maine, 279; Chicago and Alton Rw. v. Roberts, 40 Ill. 503.
[407] Crocker v. New London, Will., & Pat. Rw., 24 Conn. 249.
[408] St. Louis, etc., Rw. v. Dalby, 19 Ill. 353.
[409] Jeffersonville, etc., Rw. v. Rogers, 28 Ind. 1.
[410] Chilton v. L. & C. Rw., 16 M. & W. 212.
[411] State v. G. T. R., 4 Am. Rep. 258; 58 Me. 176.
[412] Jeffersonville, etc., Rw. v. Riley, 39 Ind. 568.
CHAPTER X.
PLATFORMS AND ALIGHTING.
Right to Safe Ingress, Egress, and Regress.—Defective Platforms.—The Englishman and the C’mum cat’or.—Getting out of Cars.—Train not at Platform.—Calling out Name; is it Invitation to alight?—Ladies jumping.—Hoop-skirts.—Must have Safe Place to alight.—Leaving Train in Motion.
“Well, here we are at last at H.,” said my friend who was learned in the law.
“Yes, now we have a chance of getting some grub (carefully collated from the plates of those who were here before us), and taking the epidermal covering off the interior of our mouths with a scalding decoction dignified by the name of tea,” I replied.
“Ding-dong-all gone—come along—one-all,” sounded forth the bell of the refreshment-room, as the train drew up to the platform, and all the weary travellers sprang up eager to stretch their limbs and to replenish the inner man. Out they rushed. Night had thrown her sable mantle (she has no other except for moonlight wear) over nature’s tired bosom, so some of our fellow travellers, in the gloom, were precipitated into a hole in the platform, which the company carelessly suffered to be there—yawning open-mouthed—unmindful of the fact that passengers have the same rights to safe ingress, egress, regress, and progress over the stations and platforms at the intermediate places where the trains stop for refreshment, as they have at the termini of the line;[413] although it would appear that where a stoppage is made only for the purposes of the railway, and people are not expected to get in or out, the rights of the travelling public and the liability of the company are both greatly curtailed.[414] As soon as one procures a ticket he is to be regarded as a passenger, and is entitled to a safe passage to his seat.[415]
Though the unfortunates kissed mother earth, they were not seriously damaged; one indeed—as a medical witness afterwards put it—suffered “from a severe contusion of the integuments under the left orbit, with a great extravasation of blood and ecchymosis in the surrounding cellubas, having also a considerable abrasion of the cuticle,” or, as the judge in common-place Anglo-Saxon expressed it, “had a black eye.” Soon comestibles of all sorts, kinds, and descriptions were vanishing rapidly by means of down grades into sub-waistcoat and sub-bodice regions.
When we had finished our repast, the train still seemed quiescent,—appeared as motionless as a painted ship upon a painted ocean,—so it was suggested that a little of something slightly stronger than tea might not be unpalatable; but, alas! spirits were tabooed on the line, so there was nothing for it but to make a foray into the adjoining neighborhood for additional stimulants. A porter kindly showed the way to a public house on the opposite side of the highroad passing the station. We were soon all practising with great success at the bar, but while enjoying ourselves to the full, the engine-bell rang out sharp and clear on the frosty air. Off we all rushed helter-skelter, and to save time, instead of returning by the way we came, we took what we thought was a bee-line for the station lights (but which turned out to be the engine’s) across some unfenced ground. Before we well knew where we were we were all tumbling pell-mell, one over the other, into a wide ditch some three feet deep. However, we gained the cars in time, and then one of our chance acquaintances—who, having been leading in the race, went down first and was trampled upon by the rest—found that his arm was badly hurt; so the Q. C. and myself tried to console him with the assurance that he was safe to recover a verdict against the company if he only entrusted his case into the hands of either of us, for a railway company is bound so to fence its station that the public will not be misled, by seeing a place unfenced, into injuring themselves by passing that way, it being the shortest road to the platform.[416] (Though by the way, a Canadian court has considered that companies are not responsible if parties come to grief through taking short cuts, if the proper way of ingress and egress to the station is safe, convenient, and well-lighted;[417] but in another case a man who broke his leg in two places by falling into a culvert, constructed by the company in the highway, while leaving the station on a dark and stormy night, got $2,000 damages.)[418] The neglect properly to light a station, or to have a sufficient corps of servants to aid passengers in alighting at night, is evidence of negligence.[419]
Thinking that the man was an American citizen, I told him that Mr. C. J. Dillon, of the State of Iowa, had said on a comparatively recent occasion that “railway companies are bound to keep in a safe condition all portions of their platforms and approaches thereto to which the public do and would naturally resort, and all portions of their station-grounds reasonably near to the platforms, where passengers, or those who have purchased tickets with a view to take passage in their cars, would naturally or ordinarily be likely to go.”[420]
“And, my dear sir,” said the Q. C., who, more observant than myself, had noticed a pile of H’s accumulating in front of the man, “there is a much stronger English case, where one Martin arrived at a station less than two minutes before the time for the train to leave, and while running along the line—in a place where he should not have gone—in order to reach the train which was a little ahead, he stumbled over a switch handle, fell on his elbow, and was considerably hurt. The jury considered that the company had been guilty of negligence and want of proper care, and gave Martin £20, and the court would not interfere.”[421]
“Vell, hi think the Hinglish case is the one for my money,” quoth our new found friend. “Hand hi’ll rub my harm with a little hof this to prevent any ’arm,” he added, producing a pocket comforter that Job never knew of.
“Don’t waste good stuff that way,” said Mr. Smith. “Apply it internally, and rub your arm with the bottle.”
“Ho-ho-ho!” laughed John Bull at the wretched joke, which doubtless was first perpetrated “when the Memnonium was in all its glory.” He took the advice, however, and the brandy with a vengeance.
Some little while after I saw him steadying himself as he stood up on the seat, and poking with his stick at the top of the car: supposing he was striving to open the ventilator, I paid little attention to him. In a few minutes the train suddenly stopped,—in a few seconds more the conductor came rushing into the car, excitedly asking if any one had pulled the rope or communicator.
“C’mum ’cat’or?” asked J. Bull, “I wang the bell for some bwandy ’n-vater. And dooced ’ard work hi ’ad to reach hit. Where’s the ’andle?”[422] Speedily the train was again under weigh.
At length, after several hours more of journeying we arrived at our destination, thankful that as yet all bones were safe and sound. Alas, I was hallooing before I was out of the wood, for as I emerged, the light being very dim, I fancied I was stepping on the platform, but as I landed violently on the ground I found that the car was some feet beyond the platform. Of course railways should bring their trains to a halt at places convenient for passengers to alight. Bringing a car to a solemn stand-still at a spot at which it is unsafe to get out, under circumstances which warrant one in believing that it is intended he shall alight and that he may do so in safety (without giving him warning of his danger), amounts to negligence on the part of the company, for which an action may be maintained if the passenger has not in any way contributed towards the accident.[423] This highly sensible rule was adopted in the case of one Praeger, where—as I afterwards found—Lord Chief Justice Cockburn, of Geneva award renown, said: “I adopt most readily the formula which has been suggested as applicable to these cases, viz., that the company are bound to use reasonable care in providing accommodation for passengers, and that the passengers are also bound to use reasonable care in availing themselves of the accommodation provided for them.”[424] Of course, if it had been daylight, and I could have used my eyesight to any practical purpose, and had noticed that the car was not in the ordinary position with regard to the platform, I would certainly have exercised a little more caution in getting out and not have been such a ninny-hammer as to step down in the way I did, for I can assure the general public, that it is anything but agreeable to step upon thin air and be thrown violently upon one’s nasal organ,—which always seems tremendously projecting on such occasions,—abrasing one’s elbows and knees. t As I had my homeward journey to perform by rail, and there seemed a chance of my being reduced to an atomic condition before I once again saw the wife of my bosom, I then, for the benefit of my numerous readers (for, of course, I meant to publish a book, as every one does nowadays), dotted down a few decisions which I thought migh be useful for them to bear in mind in case they ever came to grief in alighting from a railway train; and here they are pro bono publico.
(N. B.—Those frivolous persons who only read to pass the time, had better turn at once to the next chapter.)
Where the train overshot the platform so that the car in which one Whitaker was sitting stood opposite to the parapet of a bridge, the top of which in the dusk looked like the platform; the porters having called out the name of the place, W. getting out on the parapet in the bonâ fide belief that he was stepping on the platform, fell over and was injured, but recovered from the company. Bovill, C. J., held that on this occasion there was a clear invitation to alight at a dangerous place, and that W. was misled by the appearance of the parapet, and so distinguished the case from the Bridges one, to which I will refer in a moment or two.[425] Where in the dark, a passenger on alighting fell into a culvert, over which the car had stopped, the company were held liable.[426]
Owing to the length of the train in which a Mr. and Mrs. Foy were journeying, there was not room for all the cars to be drawn up at the platform, and some of the passengers were desired to get out upon the line beyond it. The distance from the carriage to the ground was only three feet; Mrs. F. (instead of sensibly availing herself of the two steps of the carriage) with the aid of Mr. Foy jumped from the first step to the ground, and—not being a practised athlete or gymnast but a sweet little thing—came down upon the ground like a barrel of sugar with such a thud that the vertebræ of her back were jarred and the spine injured. The jury found that the company were guilty of negligence in not providing reasonable means of alighting, and that the lady had not contributed to the accident, and they gave her £500 to pay her doctor’s bills; and the court considered the verdict warranted and declined to interfere with the damages.[427] Bovill, Q. C., urged that if the lady, instead of jumping as she did, had turned herself round and availed herself of the assistance of both steps and of the handles of the carriage, the accident would not have happened; but Williams, J., said severely that “in the present fashion of female attire, the mode of descent suggested by the learned counsel would be scarcely decent!” This judgment was given in 1865, and as fashions change two or three times a year, one can hardly decide what a lady might or should do in this present year of grace, especially as the virtuous judge did not insinuate wherein in such a descent would lie the lack of woman’s crowning glory, modesty.
While speaking of ladies and their attire I may mention that Mrs. Mary Poulin, while alighting from a Broadway car, with her youngest hopeful in her arms, caught her steel hoop-skirt upon a nail in the car platform; this threw her down, and she was dragged some distance, and seriously injured and greatly frightened. The company tried to escape liability by the ungallant plea that hoops were not a necessary article of female apparel and that if Mrs. P. was determined to wear such inflated skirts she ought to have exercised more care than is required of a brother in sit-upons; the court, however, differed from the company, and considered that the fair lady had been guilty of no negligence, and that if the railroad carried passengers adorned with crinolines they must see to their safety.[428]
Old Siner and his wife arrived in daylight at Rhyl Station and the carriage in which they were overshot the platform; the passengers were neither told to keep their seats nor to get out, nor did the train move until it started on its forward journey. After exhausting his stock of patience, S. following the example of his fellow travellers alighted, without asking the company’s servants to back the train to the platform or holding any communication with them whatever. The wife then, standing on the iron steps of the carriage, grasped both her husband’s hands and jumped down, straining her knee in the act. She did not use the footboard. There was no evidence of any carelessness or awkwardness except what might be inferred from these facts. In an action brought against the company for this injury, the court held (Kelly, C. B. diss.) that there was no evidence of negligence in the defendants, and that the accident was entirely the result of the woman’s own act in awkwardly and carelessly jumping.[429] The Foy case was distinguished, as there an express invitation to alight was given.
Where a gentleman, the corneas of whose eyes were far more convex than those of the generality of the genus homo, knowing well the station, got out of the train while the carriage in which he had been sitting was still in a tunnel, and in making his way to the platform stumbled over some rubbish and fell, breaking his leg and otherwise injuring himself so that he shortly died from the effects, it was held by the House of Lords (reversing the decision of the court below) that the train having come to a stand-still, the calling out the name of the place was an invitation to alight, and that the company’s servants calling out afterwards “Keep your seats,” showed that it had been improvidently uttered, and therefore furnished evidence of negligence, and that the personal representative of Mr. Bridges was entitled to recover against the company.[430] The shortsightedness of the deceased imposed no additional duties on the company. In another case the court thought that the conduct of a traveller, who fell down between the car and the platform, which curved gracefully back from the line, amounted to contributory negligence and so made absolute a rule to enter a nonsuit.[431]
In Bridges’ case it was unanimously held by the whole court, that the calling out the name of a station is not in itself an intimation to the passengers to alight; whether it is so or not must depend on the circumstances of each particular case. Willes, J., said, “Nobody who travels by rail who has a head on his shoulders would ever say that calling out the name was an invitation;” but many a man with a head on his shoulders, and with something in that head too, acts as if he did,—indeed C. J. Redfield says that Bridges only did what the great majority of men would have done under similar circumstances. (In fact Redfield considers that in the late cases the English courts have overstrained things in favor of the companies.)[432] Baron Cleasby thought that in reality the stopping of the train at the station is the invitation to alight. Bovill, C. J., said that whether calling out was a request to get out or not was a question for a jury.[433] In a late case Mr. Justice Blackburn gave it as his decided opinion, that calling out the name is merely an intimation to all on the train that the place at which the cars are about to stop is that particular station named; and he adds (most truthfully) that every person must have heard porters at stations call out something which, if the traveller happens to know the name of the place, is recognizable, but if the name is not known, no reliable information is gained from the porter’s cry.[434] In a still later case it was said that the train having overshot the platform and the name of the place having been called out, the omission of the company’s servants to caution passengers not to alight until the train had been brought up at the proper place was evidence of negligence, or according to Honeyman, J., negligence itself.[435]
Companies are bound to provide platforms, or safe places of deposit, for passengers to alight on at their stations and to deliver them there. If there is any difficulty in the passengers’ getting out, the officers should assist them to do so.[436] If the place where one is required to alight is in fact dangerous, it is his duty to request the train to be put in its proper place; and this is a request which no station-master would venture to refuse, knowing the risk he would incur if an accident happened through his refusal. If the defendants will not place the train properly, the plaintiff should stay in the carriage. So, at least, said the judges in Siner v. Great Western Railway (supra);[437] but we can well imagine the surprised look—tinged strongly with scorn—of a conductor upon any one of our Cis-atlantic railways, were he asked to move his train forwards or backwards merely for the convenience of his living freight.
If a man persists in getting off a train while it is in motion, especially if he has been warned by the conductor not to do so, he has no claim against the company for any damage he may receive in the act;[438] and so when one attempted to get on a train while moving and was killed in the attempt, it was held, as a matter of law, that no recovery could be had.[439] But otherwise where one lost his life in jumping off by the direction of the conductor.[440] The courts of Mississippi have laid it down clearly that it is the duty of railway companies to announce audibly in each car the name of the station reached and then allow sufficient time for the passengers safely to leave the carriages; and that on the other hand it is the duty of the passengers to use reasonable care, and to conform to the customs and usages of the company so far as they know and understand them.[441] If a company through neglect of their duty expose a passenger to obvious peril, or grave inconvenience, and the traveller to escape the threatened peril, or inconvenience, does something that is not obviously dangerous (although it may be the cause of the injury) the company will be liable.[442]
Where a man is so drunk that he cannot take care of himself, if the conductor is aware of it, he must bestow upon him the requisite degree of attention to save him from injury;[443] and so when a traveller is sick.
Ah me! I fear that this long dilating will cause my Diary to be sent
To bind a book, to line a box,
Or serve to curl a maiden’s locks.