Case ID: mass_257/html/0090-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Wait, J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Samuel Rottenberg vs. Boston Elevated Railway Company.
    Suffolk.
    March 23, 1926.
    September 17, 1926.
    Present: Braley, Crosby, Pierce, Carroll, & Wait, JJ.
    
      Negligence, Street railway: crowd in station.
    A passenger at an elevated railway station injured by being pushed into a train pit by a crowd cannot recover from the elevated railway company in an action of tort in the absence of evidence that there was boisterous or disorderly conduct on the part of the crowd.
    Tort for personal injuries suffered when the plaintiff was pushed by a crowd into the elevated track pit at the Egleston Square station of the defendant. Writ dated August 10, 1921.
    In the Superior Court, the action was tried before Law-ton, J. At the close of the evidence, a verdict was entered for the defendant, and the judge reported the action to this court for determination, “with the stipulation of the parties that if the. order of the judge ordering the verdict for the defendant was erroneous, or if there was evidence which should have meant that the cáse should have been submitted to the jury, judgment was to be entered for the plaintiff in the sum of $2,500; otherwise judgment on the verdict.”
    
      R. B. Coulter, for the plaintiff.
    
      H. F. Hathaway, for the defendant.
   Wait, J.

The evidence, taken most strongly for the plaintiff, fails to show that there was boisterous or disorderly conduct of the crowd which he contends pushed him into the track pit at the Egleston Square station and caused his injury. . There was no evidence for the jury that the defendant was negligent.

The case is governed by the decisions of this court in Sack v. Director General of Railroads, 245 Mass. 114, and cases there cited, page 122. See also Burns v. Boston Elevated Railway, 244 Mass. 451; Stanley v. Boston Elevated Railway, 248 Mass. 494; Alward v. Boston Elevated Railway, 250 Mass. 244.

The order directing a verdict for the defendant was right; and in accord with the terms of the report, the order must be

Judgment on the verdict.