Court Opinion

ID: 3623638
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2016-07-06 00:04:48.902249+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:01:38.230113
License: Public Domain

I dissent. The plaintiff, instead of running the risk her husband ran, took greater care than he, and relying, as she had the right to, on the absence of signals and the uniform custom of the defendant, met with injury owing to its negligence. The strict rule governing travelers at a highway crossing does not apply to one who is compelled to cross tracks in order to reach a railway station, which, when a train is due, is a constant invitation to come and take it. It was the duty of the defendant to so arrange its trains that a person intending to take passage could get on one without being injured by another. The plaintiff had the right to assume, in the absence of any warning, that the north-bound train would stop where such trains always had stopped. She may have erred in judgment in believing that the defendant would do its duty and warn her if a train passed by without stopping, but since she took care to walk far around instead of following her husband straight across, she should not be turned out of court on the ground that she took no care whatever. While she did not take all the care possible, since she took some, it was for the jury to say whether she took enough, and we should not hold that she was negligent as matter of law. Strict rules are required to protect passengers and those about to enter a station intending to become passengers, and every decision which tends to undermine their safety is a misfortune to the traveling public. I vote to affirm.
CULLEN, Ch. J., HAIGHT and HISCOCK, JJ., concur with WERNER, J.; WILLARD BARTLETT, J., concurs with VANN, J.; GRAY, J., absent.
Judgment reversed, etc. *Page 319