Lynch v. Boston & Maine Railroad

226 Mass. 522
CourtMassachusetts Supreme Judicial Court
DecidedMay 23, 1917
StatusPublished
Cited by11 cases

This text of 226 Mass. 522 (Lynch v. Boston & Maine Railroad) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Lynch v. Boston & Maine Railroad, 226 Mass. 522 (Mass. 1917).

Opinion

Loring, J.

The plaintiff’s story of the injury of which she complains in this action is as follows: Between half past eleven and twelve o’clock noon she was going northerly on Wallace Street wheeling her baby in a baby carriage. When she was about fifty feet away from the crossing of Wallace Street by the main tracks of the defendant railroad company a freight train going west on the further or northerly track passed and came to a stop on the crossing. The exact position of the caboose with respect to the crossing and the lines of Wallace Street were matters in dispute at the trial. This train was bound for a point on the defendant’s southerly division. To reach the southerly division, the train had to pass from the northerly track to the southerly track and from the southerly track to the rails of the southerly division. The crossover from the northerly to the southerly track and the connection with the southerly division lay to the westward of the crossing here in question.

The plaintiff testified that when she “reached the tracks the train had stopped” and that she asked the crossing tender how long the train would remain there and he said about fifteen minutes and asked her if she was in a hurry to which she answered that [524]*524she wanted “to get dinner” and thereupon he said to come on and that he would help her across. To quote the words of her testimony: “He walked over toward me, I had the talk with him and then we went to go round the rear of the train. I pushed the carriage along and when we got to the tracks he was at the front end of the baby carriage. He lifted up the front wheels to get over the rails and I lifted up the rear wheels to get over the rails. The train was on the opposite track. We got through the space between the tracks and he lifted up the front wheels to go over that rail and I the rear. When we got to the next rail he lifted up the baby carriage to get over that rail, and I was standing in the centre between the two rails of the further track, getting ready to lift up the rear of the carriage. I saw the sleepers under the different tracks.” She testified that without notice of any kind the train backed down, broke the baby carriage and knocked her down, and that she fell between the rails of the northerly track and stayed there until the train stopped. On direct testimony she said: “I should say it [the train] went the whole length of one car, almost, before it stopped.” On cross-examination she testified that she did not crawl out from the rear of the car, but “from the centre of the car somewhere, I should say, on Wallace Street — on the other side.” She testified that as the freight train stood, there was not room for her to go across the tracks from Wallace Street with the carriage, but that she “could probably have got across alone;” that to the best of her judgment the end of the caboose was two feet inside the end of the planking.

The account of the accident given by the defendant’s witnesses was that the crossing tender was on the north side of the crossing and stayed there until he rushed forward and grabbed the baby out of the baby carriage as the train struck it. The crossing tender denied inviting the plaintiff to cross; his statement was that he told her she could not cross. In addition his statement was that she was not on the crossing at the time she was struck. The conductor of the freight train testified that the train “went eight to ten feet before it came to a stop. . . . The caboose was half way beyond the crossing, east of the crossing toward Salem, when I got there.” The brakeman of the freight train testified that he was in the caboose and that he heard the crossing tender say “Don’t go across there, lady!” and at the same time he saw the plaintiff’s [525]*525head go across behind the caboose. He jumped for the air lever, put it on and stopped the train. In that connection he testified that when the train came to a stop “the rear of the caboose was in the neighborhood of eight feet from the crossing.” The flagman of the freight crew confirmed the testimony of the brakeman. He said “the train moved ten or twelve feet from the time it started until it stopped.”

It is stated in the bill of exceptions that the crossing was planked between and just outside of the rails of each of the tracks and that the space between the two tracks of the crossing was filled with dirt. A civil engineer who drew a plan introduced in evidence and who made certain measurements in January, 1915, (two years and a half after the accident,) testified that the planking “was forty-five and seven tenths feet long and covered the entire width of Wallace Street though he knew nothing of the conditions there in 1912.”

At the conclusion of the evidente the judge directed a verdict for the defendant and reported the case to this court under a stipulation that if there was any evidence sufficient to entitle the plaintiff to have her claim submitted to the jury the verdict should be set aside and judgment entered for the plaintiff in the sum of $300.

1. The plaintiff’s first contention is that on this evidence the jury were warranted in finding that she was within the side lines of Wallace Street when she was struck by the train. It does not appear who called the civil engineer to the witness stand. But his testimony was the only testimony in the case as to the side lines of Wallace Street. The burden of proof was on the plaintiff to show where the side lines of Wallace Street were if she wished to put her case on the ground that she was within those side lines. Unless the side lines of the street testified to by the civil engineer to be the side lines in 1915 are to be taken to have been the side lines at the date of the accident the plaintiff must fail on this issue for lack of proof as to where they were at that time. The view of the evidence most favorable to the plaintiff is that the easterly side line of Wallace Street and the line of the easterly end of the planking were one and the same line.

On this assumption it is plain that the jury were not warranted in finding that at the time of the accident the plaintiff was within the location of Wallace Street. It appeared that the space between the rails of both of the tracks was planked and also a [526]*526space outside the rails of each track, but that the space between the two tracks was filled with dirt. The plaintiff’s testimony was that the crossing tender lifted the front wheels to get over the rails of the southerly track and she lifted the rear wheels to get over the rails of that track; that they then got through the space between the tracks and the crossing tender “lifted up the front wheels to go over that rail and I the rear. When we got to the next rail he lifted up the baby carriage to get over that rail, and I was standing in the centre between the two rails” of that track “getting ready to lift up the rear of the carriage” when the accident happened. There was no occasion to lift the carriage at least over the further rail of each track if she was on the planking, because on the evidence the whole space between the rails of each track was covered by the planking. In addition she testified “I saw the sleepers under the different tracks.” That is in effect direct testimony that she was not on the planking, for as we have said the planking covered all the space between the rails of each track and she could not have seen the sleepers between the rails of the tracks if she had been on the planking. On the plaintiff’s testimony she was outside of the line of Wallace Street when she attempted to cross.

2.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
226 Mass. 522, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/lynch-v-boston-maine-railroad-mass-1917.