Case Name: RAILROAD CO. v. ANDERSON
Court: Franklin County Circuit Court
Jurisdiction: Ohio
Decision Date: 1901-01
Citations: 21 Ohio C.C. 228
Docket Number: 
Parties: RAILROAD CO. v. ANDERSON.
Judges: Before Wilson, Sullivan and Summers, JJ.
Reporter: Reports of cases argued and determined in the circuit courts of Ohio
Volume: 21
Pages: 228–229

Head Matter:
(Second Circuit — Franklin Co., O., Cir’t Court,
Jan. Term, 1901.)
Before Wilson, Sullivan and Summers, JJ.
RAILROAD CO. v. ANDERSON.
Accommodations at Railroad station — Liability of Railroad—
(1.) It is not the duty of a common carrier of passengers to exercise the highest degree of care in the matter of station accommodations for the safety of its passengers, but only to provide such as are reasonably safe for persons exercising ordinary care, and when it is not so obviously dangerous to permit passengers to pass from a train to an uniighted station platform that the court can say it was negligence to do so, it is error for the court in its charge to assume that it was the duty of the carrier to furnish light.
Same—
(2.) In an action to recover damages from a common carrier of passengers, for injuries received in alighting from a train at a station, on the ground of negligenoe in not providing reasonably safe accommodations, it is error, where the danger was not obvious, to exclude testimony that in the use for a long time in the same condition no similar aocident had happened.
Error to the Court of Common Pleas of Franklin county.

Opinion:
The plaintiff, Alice Anderson, in her second amended petition, avers in substance that in November, 1896, she was a passenger on a passenger train of the defendant, the Cleveland, Akron and Columbus Railway Company; that it was dark when the train reached her destination; that the station platform was distant about eight or ten inches from the steps of her car, and that in attempting to step from the steps of submit. There was no error in refusing to submit the second, and we find it so under the case of Schweinfurth, Administrator, v. Railway Company, supra.
Preusser & Wenneman, for Plaintiff in Error,
Wilcox, Collister, Hogan & Parmely, for Defendant in Error.
As to the third, it might as well have been asked if this accident could have occurred if the laws of gravitation had been suspended. The question was: "If the elevator had been left at rest, could the accident have happened?" That is to say, if something had been there so strong as to stop him from falling, could he have gone down?
The case is reversed and remanded to the court of common pleas for the errors pointed out, and for no other.