St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1884-04-03
STREET RAILWAY DECISION
The Liabilities of Carriers of Passen-
gers for Hire.

May s, 1882, Howard Taylor Smith was
injured in a collision of st. Paul street rail
way cars and brought a suit for 300 dam
ages against the street railway company. The
suit was tried in the district court with a
jury, who awarded Smith $4,000 damages.
The company appealed the case to the SUI
preme court, and Judge Vanderburgh sus-
tanned the verdict in decision given yester-
day, the syllabus of which will be found in
another column of to-day's paper.
AS the subject is one in which all citizens
are more or less interested, and as the
''opinion" of the court very clearly defines
the duties of the corporation as passenger
carriers for hire, We give a running abstract
Of the same as follows:
The action was brought to recover personal
damages by collision Of two street cars.
Smith claimed to be a passenger at the time,
and the company claimed he was not pas
senger the time, and that they had need only
to exercise ordinary care towards him. Smith
showed that he had signaled the car which he
wished to enter; that it had halted for him at
crossing, and that he had stepped upon the
platform and was trying to open an obstinate
door, when he heard the noise ofanother car
approaching in the rear, and then came a
collision of car with car by which he was
knocked down and seriously hurt.
The defense claims that he was between
the rails when the collision occurred; but
the judge below charged the jury that IF he
was not actually on the platform of the car,
buthad hailed it, it had stopped to give him
passage, and he was carefully trying to get
on the platform, that he was passenger"
The lower court ruled by this that Smith
had placed himself in charge of the railway
company, and was entitled to protection by
it as passenger. The rule is not infexible
that to entitle person to such protection he
must he actually within the vehicle or upon
some portion of it. Otherwise he might
in good faith, and in the exercise of due
care, place himself in a position of peril
while in the act Of taking passage upon the
consent and invitation of the carrier, and
the latter be bound to the exercise of ordi-
nary care only.
The defendant or street railway company,
is carrier OF passengers for hire, subject to
the rules of passenger carriers and respon-
sible for the slightest negligence. These
rules extend to the management of its cars
and track and all subsidiary arrangements
for the safety of passengers.
Inc cOlllSlOn occurred on down grade
and by it both cars were thrown from the
track, and the horses on the rear car became
unmanageable and were running away.
But during the storm that
evening the streets were lighted
and each car was discernible from the other
Therefore no satisfactory cause was shown
by the company for the happening of the &C
cident and that and the injury to Smith arose
from want of care. The loss of carrier
does not extend to breakage or defect in a
car, but it extends to everything the carrier
can control, and by exercise of due diligence
this accident might have been avoided.
1t was not attributable to extraordinary
causes or either to inevitable accident.
The fact that the team of horses attached
to the car ran away and became ungovernable
because frightened by hail storm does not
imply inevitable accident The duty of the
company was to guard against accidents of
this kind, to run their cars at suitable dis
tances apart, to employ skillfuI drivers and
use safe teams and to employ careful servants
on their lines.
An unavoidable accident must appear in
proof to release a company from liability in
such accidents. In this case the jury in the
lower court, when called upon TO decide the
question, said that the street railroad compa-
ny did not exercise proper care under the cir
cumstances to prevent the accident, and
verdict was affirmed