Case ID: pelt_5/html/0125-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "CHAELES F. CLAIBOENE, JUDGE.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Charles J?. Claihome, Judge.
    Mrs. ROBERT CAILLIER VS N. O. RY. & LT. CO. & al.
    No. 8126
    November 14th, 1921.
    
      
    
   MES. EOBERT CAILLIEE VS N. 0. EY. & LT. CO. & al.

No. 8126

CHAELES F. CLAIBOENE, JUDGE.

Plaintiff ms riding in one of the street car® of the defendant company, when, by accident or inadvertence, her hand ,s extended beyond the window of the car; it came in contact with another car of defendant company going in an opposite direction, and was injured. Hence this suit in damages.

The plaintiff alleged that about eight twenty o'clock P. M. she was a passenger on a Tulane Belt car proceeding along Tulane Avenue going towards the lake; that she

"was seated in the third seat on the left hand side of the car, with her elbow on the window sill and her left hand resting against her cheek; that upon reaching a point near the coiner of Hagan Avenue, the said car^ 1 owing to the defective condition of the tracks of said street railway company, gave a sudden jolt and tilted or leaned towards the adjoining track which parallelled within very close proximity the track on which said Tulane Belt car was running; that upon reaching said defective spot and at the moment the said jolt occurred, a car of the St. Charles Belt line was passing along the adjoining track going towards the river; that said jolt caused petitioner's elbow to slip' from said window sill, and her hand sli^it^r protruded from the window of said car, and came in violent contact with said car of the St. Charles Belt line, resulting in the tearing of the flesh of her left hand at the lower part of the thumb, causing an incised wound of the left hand, which made her suffer great physical and mental pain; that her said injuries were caused solely and entirely by the negligence and carelessness of the railway company, and that plaintiff did in no wise contribute to the accident; that at the time of the accident there was and is now a city ordinance requiring the cars on the Tulane Belt line to be provided with screens for the protection of passengers; that at the time plaintiff suffered her injury the car in which she was seated was not so screened; that petitioner would not have been injured had the car been so screened".

She prays for $1000 damages.

The defendant answered that the plaintiff permitted her am to go outside of the body of the car so that it came in contact with some object on the adjoining track, and by so doing plaintiff's injuries were due to her own careless, negligent, and imprudent conduct.

There was judgment for defendant dismissing plaintiff's suit, and she has appealed.

Plaintiff's testimony is a practical reiteration of the allegations of her petition. She measures about 22 to 24 inches from her am to the end of her fingers.

A. Brignae, a brother of the plaintiff testified:

"We were sitting on the seat talking and she had her elbow on the window with her hand on her cheek, jm<d I happened to be looking out, and there was a jar t*r the car, or bounce, somehow or other, and it made an awful big bounce and her elbow must have slipped and her hand dropped, and just as soon as her hand dropped, I heard her holloa, and I reached for her am and pulled it in, and it was done already; at that time I saw a car passing the tracks at that point were in bad condition, it caused the car to tilt to the left; the distance from the ground to the window sill is about six feet; they repaired the track after the accident; neither hie sister nor himself made any complaint to tho conductor of her injury»

Officer Shelter swears that he knows about where the accident occurred; the connections of the two tracks were loose; it made the cars jolt towards the left; the track was repaired some two weeks after that»

Officer Friese testifies that Mrs» Callier came to him while on his beat and complained about getting her hand hurt, and he brought them to the Carrollton ham; the di stance between the two tracks is four feet, six inches from track to track; tte cars protrude about eighteen inches over the rails; the track was in bad condition and made tho cars lean towards each other; he noticed how the cars rocked; the top of the oar was brought six or eight inches apart, and the windows about sixteen inches; the 0» K. line of cars pass upon the same tracks; he did not «amine the track; lots of people ride with their elbows out of the window; it is the first time he ewer heard of any one getting hurt that way; when the cars go fast they swing very much from side to side»

W. F. Loan, chief clerk of the Claim Department of defendant company, testified that he was riding on the rear platform of the car on which the accident occurred with his mother; that on reaching the bridge near the Mew Basin, she informed him that an accident had occurred in the front part of the car; he went to the front part of the oar and informed the motorman and tried to collect witnesses, but every on® said they had not witnessed the- accident; he noticed no unusual jolt of the oar.

The witness produces sketches representing the measurements of the cars, of the seats, aid. of the windows. From these sketches it appears that the distance from the face of the rails to the outside top of the car is niaa feet, five inches; and the distance from the face of the rail to the molding below the windows is five feet, one and seven-eights inches; the distance fran back to back of seats, at the top is twenty-nine inches; the distance from the back of the seat to furthest side of the window in front is twenty-two inches; the distance from the top of the Beat to the sill or am rest of th® window is oigjit and one half inches; the arm rest is one and asven-ei^ite to the molding or rain shed which is four inches wid®, so that the distance from the inside of the window of the am rest to the extreme edge of the rain shed ia five and seven-eights inches.

The witness further states that he travels four time a day on this line ae he lives in Carrollton; after the accident he took particular notice and did not perceive that the cars swayed to any extent more than the natural motion of the car; the distance between the cars at ths molding board, as they pass each other is about sixteen inches.

Mrs. Maty S. Loan, mother of the last witness, says she was seated in the centre of ths car in which the accident occurred; she saw a commotion and was told a woman got hurt; she noticed no jolting of ths car, it was running smoothly.

B. A. Ainsworth was a conductor on the car when the accident occurred; he noticed no unusual movement or swaying of cars on that occasion; no one made any complaint of an accident except Mr. Loan; the track was in veiy fair condition, no rough places; he did not notice any repairs going on after the accident; he noticed a lady goBag out with her hand tied in a hand kerchief with some blood on it; she went to the bam foreman to make a complaint.

Felix Desmare was the motoman; he knew nothing of the accident until Mr. Loan told him of it; he noticed no unusual jolting or swajiing of the car; the road was in the usual condition, some places more or less rocking than others; no extensive repairs were made after the accident, they did work immediately after for several days.

It was admitted that J. Dunn, the track foreman of defendant, would testify that on July 17 there was work done on the Tulane Avenue track®, consisting of repairing joints and that there tos more work done on November 21th. to 25th.

City Ordinance No. 12677 Council Series, to which plaintiff refers, is in the following words;

"That the Commissioner of Public Works be directed to require all street railroad companies to place wire aereene on the windows of cars running on streets where the tracks are in close proximity to trees, or on Canal Street where the tracks are in close proximity to Clay Monument, of sufficient height to prevent accident to passengers; provided, that this ordinance shall not apply to cars which are so constructed as in the opinion of said Commissioner to protect the passengers".

The very language of this ordinance applies to

"cars ruining on streets where the tracks are in close proximity to tree*; or to Csnl Street where the tracks are in close proximity to Clay Monument";

therefore, the ordinance does not control the management of cars on streets like Tulans Avenue where there are no trees in close proximity to the tracks, nor to any part of Canal Street, since the removal of the Clay Monument. The Ordinance, however, serves the principle, that where cars run so close to any obstacle as to endanger the safety of passengers, it is the duty of the railroad under cannon law, to screen the windows or to take other preservative precautions.

The Judge of the District Court decided the case on the . following propositions of law: lo that a passenger cannot recover damages from a carrier unless he can show that the carrier has been guilty of some act of negligence; 2o the test of that negligence was when an experienced carrier could' and should have forsseen that a certain condition of things would possibly result in damage. The Judge held- that the two tracks of the railroad tore not in such close preadaity to each other as to suggest das- / ' vWOide^ihai-..oaeiufr*d during .the maqy :yeaxw dwi*N' which the can had haca running under the same condition»» The .*■ Judge further hold that the testimony failed to prove that the tracks^wiHifin such had condition as to injure a passenger. He failed to find negLigence on the part of the defendant and decid* od in its favor. ^

The judgRn appreciation of the foots and his statement of the lav are both correct. The defendant company can bo held only for negLigence ?)4jegLigence has been defined to be' the failure to use euch care as is necessary to avoid a danger which ~ should have been anticipated,by Reasons of which the plaintiff, has suffered injury. 114 La. 1011; 95 U. S. 439 (441).

A defendant can only be required to guard against a probable or anticipated danger. 49 A. 1184 (1196); 118 N. W. 812; 68 S. W. 6; 67 N. Y. Supp. 409; 111 Mass.136; 21 Minn. 211; 44 Penn St. 375; 85 N. Y. Sup. 472; 37 A. 288; 1 Thompson on Neg. 50, 58; 38 A. 159; 57 Kans. 499; 46 Pac. 941; 81 Ills. 76; 147 Mass. 315; 118 N. W. 812; 114 La. 1011; 53 Kans. 279; 36 Pac. 322; 43 A. 792.

* "Evidence that no accident had followed for a long time after the existence of a certain fact would not be determinative of its not being actually by a concurrence of special facts dangerous; but the existence of the fact without injury for a long time, with factors constantly present calaulated to produce injury if really dangerous from those factors, would go far to do away with the an-ticipadsn of resulting injury”. 114 La. 1005 (1017). Q)

The distance between the two cars was about sixteen inches; if we add to that the width of the window sill, -five and seven-eight inches, we have nearly twenty-four inches separating a pei-sonfc body in one car from the side of an adjoining car. The plaintiff testifies that she has a long reach and that the distance from her aim to the end of her fingers is from 22 to 24 inches. It would be the height of imprudence for any passenger to extend hen arm out of the car at full length; and the Company could not anticipate that a passenger's arm resting on a sill of the window would be extended to that length even when «lipping from the «ill. If it slipped owing to the passenger's fault, certainly the company could not be held liable; and if the slipping was caused by an ordinary jolting or jar of the car, incident to its operation, the company cannot be held liable. The passengers assume the risks of those unavoidable conditions. 104 La. 157; 106 La. 592; 134 La. 654; 139 La. 439.

The plaintiff relies upon the oases of Summers, 34 A. 139, and Clerc vs R. Rd., 107 La. 370. But in the first oase the defendant was held liable because the distance between the two cars on its lines was so small as to cause the cars almost >j^ \$o collide with each other in the curves, and that plaintiff's fl elbow projected out of the car only "a few inches". In the second case, the defendant had left a door of an adjoining box car opemys^ in such proximity to the passenger car as to collide with and break plaintiff's am.

The Court said on p 379;

"In this case it is not claimed that the plaintiff threw his hand or am out of the car, and in so doing struck some object on the outside, x x x At the utmost. the plaintiff inadvertently or forgetfully permitted his ti/bow to project somewhat beyond the outer edge of the sill*.

In the case Of Moore vs Edison Co., 43 A. 795 which osas a case of a passenger who put his head out of a car and was struck by a post standing at eight inches from .tho car window, lthe Court said;

"Although to some extent, as the Courts have held, he might, owing to custom and local exigencies of climate, have allowed his elbow reasonably to protrude from the inside out of the window, x x x If a passenger has the, right of putting out, besides his slbows, his head and chest, why should he not, also, have that of stretching out his ama, lega, and even hanging out hfs whole body"»;

It is inmaterial whether this stretching out of the arms is done intentionally or accidently. The crucial question is whether a reasonable distance was maintained between the cars so as to secure imriunity from injury to the passengers under normal conditions, or whether injury could hate been reasonably foreseen or anticipated from the relative distance of the cars? We think not, and the judgnent is therefore affirmed.

November 14th, 1921