Case Name: Wilfred H. Goddard vs. Boston and Maine Railroad
Court: Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court
Jurisdiction: Massachusetts
Decision Date: 1901-05-22
Citations: 179 Mass. 52
Docket Number: 
Parties: Wilfred H. Goddard vs. Boston and Maine Railroad.
Judges: 
Reporter: Massachusetts Reports
Volume: 179
Pages: 52–52

Head Matter:
Wilfred H. Goddard vs. Boston and Maine Railroad.
Suffolk.
March 12, 1901.
May 22, 1901.
Present: Holmes, C. J., Lathrop, Barker, Hammond, & Loring, JJ.
Carrier, Of passengers. Negligence.
A passenger, who leaving a train walks along a station platform on which other passengers are walking ahead of him and falls by stepping on a banana skin and is injured, cannot recover from the railroad company, if it does not appear how long the banana skin had been there or how it got there.
Tort by a passenger to recover for injuries from a fall caused by stepping on a banana skin on an artificial stone platform at the North Union Station in Boston. Writ dated April 27, 1900.
At the trial in the Superior Court, before Aiken, J., there was no evidence showing how long the banana skin had lain where the plaintiff stepped on it or how it got there. The plaintiff testified that there were employees of the defendant near the spot when he fell, that he had just got off a smoking car at the rear of a train in which he had come from Lynn, that other passengers from the same train were walking along the platform and that there were people ahead of him, that he stepped on something which he found out afterwards was a banana skin. He saw it after he fell and another nian kicked it off the platform against the wheel of a car, saying “ That is what he fell on.” A witness testified that the platform was of some artificial stone and very smooth.
The judge directed the jury to return a verdict for the defendant; and the plaintiff alleged exceptions.
J. JE. Crowley, for the plaintiff.
W. I. Badger, for the defendant.

Opinion:
Holmes, C. J.
The banana skin upon which the plaintiff stepped and which caused him to slip may have been dropped within a minute by one of the persons who was leaving the train. It is unnecessary to go further to decide the case.
Exceptions overruled.