Court Opinion

ID: 9810398
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 21:49:09.816441+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:39:54.041658
License: Public Domain

Clark, C. J.,
dissenting. The defendant owed the plaintiff a safe exit from its cars. The usual requirement nowadays, wherever there is much travel, is that outgoing passengers leave by one door of the car and incoming passengers enter at the other. This prevents any collision between the two streams of passengers, and it is negligence for a railroad company not to establish and enforce reasonable regulations, which are in general use, to prevent accidents by the strong trampling upon the weak, burly men running over weak and delicate women and children.
The plaintiff was descending and on the second step when a strong, able-bodied man with a heavy iron-bound valise in his band, caught hold of the iron stanchion to swing himself up. The conductor was standing by the step, and, if ad-vertent to his duties, instead of allowing his attention to be attracted elsewhere, he could certainly have put out his hand more quickly than the man could swing his own weight and that of the valise up, and have made him wait until the lady and other passengers had gotten out. At least, this was evidence for the jury to consider, and this court, I think, should not bold as a proposition of law that it was not negligence for the conductor to permit the heavy man and his heavy valise to crowd up the steps twenty-two inches wide, on which the *838lady was descending and where she had the right of way. The lady says she did not anticipate the man would strike her with the valise. If she had, it might have been contributory negligence, possibly, not. to have called out or shrunk back (if possible) but because, relying on the care of the defendant’s servant, she was not thus guilty of contributory negligence, it is hard measure to hold that therefore the conductor was not negligent in not stopping the man, nor the company in not having safe regulations to prevent collision between incoming and outgoing streams of passengers. The conductor was at the foot of the steps and should have seen, sooner than the lady or than her father, who was three steps away, that the heavy man with the heavy valise had laid hold of the iron rod to swing up on the crowded steps. The conductor’s hand should have been instantly stretched out across the steps, and he should have told the man politely, but firmly, he could not go up till those on the steps had descended. If there was any reason to the contrary the conductor should have gone on the stand and have told what it was. Whether the conductor was attending to his duties or negligent, in the premises, was a matter of fact to be determined by the jury.
When the case was here on the former appeal (130 N. C., 279) this present question as to whether there was any evidence was not before the court, and could not be, for the appeal was by the plaintiff from the judgment below granfi ing the new trial, and the court expressly so stated in the opinion. Besides, there was some additional evidence on the last trial. His Honor in the second trial below was doubtless misled by the first headnote in the former appeal.