Case ID: mass_301/html/0570-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Lummus, J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Harriet Kiley vs. New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad Company.
    Plymouth.
    December 7, 1938.
    December 10, 1938.
    Present: Field, C.J., Lummus, Qua, Dolan, & Ronan, JJ.
    
      Negligence, Railroad: station, passageway; One owning or controlling real estate. Proximate Cause.
    
    Evidence merely that an intended passenger of a railroad corporation, in a covered passageway with a cement floor maintained by the corporation at its station, “fell” in water which had-collected on the floor from leaks in the roof, did not warrant a finding that a condition of the floor negligently allowed to exist bore a causal relation to injuries so received.
    Tort. Writ in the District Court of Brockton dated February 21, 1934.
    On removal to the Superior Court, the action was tried before Sheehan, J. The plaintiff testified "that she was going to Boston and wanted to buy a ticket and that she intended to go through the tunnel to get to the northbound station.” There was a verdict for the plaintiff in the sum of $2,500. The defendant alleged exceptions.
    
      N. W. Deering, for the defendant.
    
      H. Lawlor, (A. Rosen with him,) for the plaintiff.
   Lummus, J.

The defendant excepted to the denial of its motion for a directed verdict in its favor in an action of tort for negligently causing bodily injury. At its Brockton station the defendant maintained a covered passageway with a floor made of "a cement material having a trade name ‘terrazzo.’ ” In rainy weather the roof leaked and the floor became wet. The floor had settled in places, but one could hardly notice that unless there was water on the floor. On May 3, 1933, when the floor was wet, although the plaintiff did not feel any water under her feet, she “fell into ‘a lot of water,’” about a quarter of an inch deep.

Evidence that the floor was wet did not of itself warrant a finding that it was dangerously slippery. Evidence that the plaintiff fell while walking along the wet passageway did not of itself warrant a finding that her fall was caused by slipping or by the wetness of the floor. The evidence falls short of showing that a condition of the floor negligently allowed to exist bore a causal relation to the injury. Pearson v. Director General of Railroads, 245 Mass. 158, 162. See also Tariff v. S. S. Kresge Co. 299 Mass. 129.

Exceptions sustained.