O'Callaghan v. Dellwood Park Co.

149 Ill. App. 34, 1909 Ill. App. LEXIS 416
CourtAppellate Court of Illinois
DecidedMarch 24, 1909
DocketGen. No. 5,117
StatusPublished
Cited by3 cases

This text of 149 Ill. App. 34 (O'Callaghan v. Dellwood Park Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Appellate Court of Illinois primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
O'Callaghan v. Dellwood Park Co., 149 Ill. App. 34, 1909 Ill. App. LEXIS 416 (Ill. Ct. App. 1909).

Opinion

Mr. Justice Dibell

delivered the opinion of the court.

At the request of appellee the court gave two instructions to the effect that it was the duty of a company operating such a railway to exercise the highest degree of care and caution for the safety of its passengers consistent with the practical operation of the railway, and to do all that human care, vigilance and foresight could reasonably do, consistently with the character and mode of conveyance adopted and the practical prosecution of the business, to prevent accidents to passengers while riding upon its cars. One of these instructions was not technically correct, but it did not direct a verdict, and no point is made' here upon any technical inaccuracy. These instructions placed upon appellant the obligations which the law imposes upon common carriers of passengers for hire, and the principal question in the case is whether appellant is subject to that measure of liability. So far as we are advised this is an open question in this State. The vehicle in which appellant’s passengers rode was a car running upon wheels placed upon rails. The inspection and control of all the appliances were solely in appellant and its servants. The persons riding in the car could do nothing to guide, control or stop it. They were entirely at the mercy of the appliances appellant had provided. It carries these passengers for hire. It made but a single stop, and the passengers rode for pleasure only, and not upon business. We see no reason why the latter circumstance should affect the rule of liability. We see no good reason why the same underlying principles which bring the operator of a passenger elevator in a building within the rule of liability applied to the common carrier of passengers should not bring those operating these cars upon this scenic railway within the same rule of liability. In Hartford Deposit Co. v. Sollitt, 172 Ill. 222, the court said: “Persons operating elevators are carriers of passengers, and the same rules applicable to other carriers of passengers are applicable to those operating elevators for raising and lowering persons from one floor to another in buildings. It is a duty of such carriers of passengers to use extraordinary care in and about the operation of such elevators, so as to prevent injury to persons therein. The fact of the falling of the elevator is evidence tending to show want of care in its management by the operator or its servants, or that the same was out of repair or faultily constructed.” The same doctrine is announced in Springer v. Ford, 189 Ill. 430; Chicago Exchange Bldg. Co. v. Nelson, 197 Ill. 334; and Beidler v. Branshaw, 200 Ill. 425. In Springer v. Ford, supra, the court quotes with approval from Treadwell v. Whittier, 80 Cal. 575, as follows: “Persons who are lifted by elevators are subjected to great risks of life and limb. They are hoisted vertically and are unable, in the case of the breaking of the machinery, to help themselves. The persons running such elevator must be held to undertake to raise such persons safely, as far as human care and foresight will go. The law holds him to the utmost care and diligence of very cautious persons, and responsible for the slightest neglect. Such responsibility attached to all persons engaged in empl oyments where human beings submit their bodies to their control, by which their lives or limbs are put at hazard or where such employment is attended with danger to life or limb. The utmost care and diligence must be used by persons engaged in such employments to avoid injury to those they carry. The care and diligence required is proportioned to the danger to the persons carried. In proportion to the degree of danger to others must be the care and diligence to be exercised. Where the danger is great the utmost care and diligence must be employed. In such cases the law requires extraordinary care and diligence.” Much of this language is applicable to passengers riding in cars upon appellant’s scenic railway. From the very nature of the means of conveyance adopted passengers thereon are subjected to great risks to life and limb. The sudden falls and sharp curves and great speed are sources of peril. The passengers are unable to help themselves in.case of any break or displacement of any part of the car, or of the rails or timbers upon which it rests, or of the rails or timbers at its sides which form the channel or trough which guides and controls its course. The passengers who enter these vehicles and start upon this journey submit their bodies to the control of the appliances which appellant has constructed. They put their lives and limbs at hazard upon a journey which appellant has made attractive in order to induce them to take and pay for the trip. No agent of appellant goes with the car, and it is therefore all the more incumbent upon appellant to exercise the utmost vigilance that there shall be no defect either in the car or in the artificial route to be traversed. "While those who ride in elevators do not pay, the patrons of this scenic railway are passengers for hire. Operators of elevators are equally subject to this stringent rule of liability whether those who ride are engaged in real business with some occupant of the building or are going up or down from motives of mere curiosity. Why should the motives of those who ride upon this scenic railway relieve the operator from the duty to carry these paying passengers safely, so far as human care and foresight can do so, consistently with the mode of conveyance adopted, and the practical prosecution of the business? We conclude appellant is responsible as a common carrier. Since this opinion was first written appellant has furnished us with a copy of an opinion rendered in January, 1909, by the Supreme Court of New York, appellate division, in Lumsden v. L. A. Thompson Scenic Eailway Co., relating to an accident upon a similar railway. We do not think that case in point, for there, under the proof, there was nothing unusual or extraordinary about the motion of the car, and there was no evidence that anything happened upon the trip when the plaintiff was injured which was not the usual occurrence made necessary by the motion of the car.

It follows, therefore, that after evidence had been introduced showing that appellee had paid his fare and was riding in this vehicle on this railway in charge of appellant and that by some mischance in the operation of the car he was thrown out and injured, he had made a prima facie case, and cast upon the carrier the burden of relieving itself of liability; and that the instructions were correct, unless .they should have been different because of the peculiar frame of the declaration. Each of the two counts of the declaration first stated that it was appellant’s duty to exercise ordinary care for the safety of persons riding upon its railway. Then each count set out in detail the facts which in the view we have taken would require appellant to exercise the highest degree of care consistent with the practical operation of the road and the mode of conveyance adopted. It is not necessary that a declaration shall state the duty of the defendant, and if it does so, and states it inadequately or incorrectly, that statement may be treated as surplusage. The declaration must state the facts from which the law raises the duty. The most that can be said against this declaration is that each count first charges that it was appellant’s duty to exercise ordinary care, and then states facts from which the law raises the duty to exercise the highest degree of care.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
149 Ill. App. 34, 1909 Ill. App. LEXIS 416, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/ocallaghan-v-dellwood-park-co-illappct-1909.