Quinley v. Springfield Traction Co.

165 S.W. 346, 180 Mo. App. 287, 1914 Mo. App. LEXIS 245
CourtMissouri Court of Appeals
DecidedApril 14, 1914
StatusPublished
Cited by14 cases

This text of 165 S.W. 346 (Quinley v. Springfield Traction Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Missouri Court of Appeals primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Quinley v. Springfield Traction Co., 165 S.W. 346, 180 Mo. App. 287, 1914 Mo. App. LEXIS 245 (Mo. Ct. App. 1914).

Opinions

FARRINGTON, J.

Suit for personal injuries. Plaintiff recovered verdict and judgment for two thousand dollars. Defendant has perfected an appeal to this court.

The plaintiff’s petition is based solely upon the humanitarian doctrine. The answer consists of a general denial, and a special defense which is in the nature of a general denial, admitting defendant’s incorporation, and alleging that plaintiff walked upon the track of the defendant in front of an approaching street car and so close thereto that the same could not by the exercise of ordinary care be stopped in time to have prevented the collision. At the close of all the evidence the defendant requested an instruction in the nature of a demurrer to the evidence which was refused, of which ruling, together with others to which we will refer, complaint is now made. As the plaintiff’s case, if she has a case, must withstand the attack made by the demurrer to the evidence, we will first notice that point.

There is evidence in the record tending to show a state of facts which we think clearly entitled the plaintiff to have her case submitted to the jury.

Summarized from a long record, the facts are about as follows: The defendant owns and operates an electric street railway system with a double track running east and west on Commercial street in the city of Springfield, Missouri, interesecting Lyon street which runs north and south and which has a sidewalk [293]*293only along its east side. Defendant’s cars running. west on Commercial street travel along the north track, and stop on the west side of Lyon street to take on or let off passengers if there are any. Defendant’s cars moving eastward along Commercial street travel along the south track. Boonville street, running north and south parallel with Lyon street, intersects Commercial street at a point two blocks east of Lyon. The grade, from Boonville street to a point west of Lyon street is a descending one to some extent. The accident occurred on defendant’s north track on Commercial street in the daytime somewhere between the east and west curb lines of Lyon street if they were projected into Commercial street as far as the defendant’s tracks. The width of Lyon street, between the curb lines is twenty-nine and one-half feet. The plaintiff, a married woman about sixty-seven years of age, left the house from which she was moving (which was somewhere north of the place of the accident) and came south along the east side of Lyon street. She intended to cross to the south side of Commercial street and go on south on Lyon. She had in her arms a mirror, an umbrella, a sack with some young chickens in it, and probably one other bundle, and wore a fascina-' tor or some covering over her head and ears hut which did not interfere with her vision. The evidence tended to show that she left the sidewalk on the east side of Lyon street, stepped down from the curb into Commercial street, and proceeded to cross the last named street in a southwesterly direction. The distance from the curb line of Commercial street to defendant’s north track is about twenty-one feet. She proceeded in this direction, walking about one mile per hour, picking her way over the street which had been made muddy by a recent rain, and without looking once to the east, in which direction a person similarly situated could see a car coming for a distance of at least two blocks, she walked onto the north track and got near the south rail [294]*294of the north track when a car coming from the east struck her and threw her up and back on the pavement north of the track. The car stopped so that the back end of it was several feet west of where she was thrown, and the back end of the car was standing at a point on the track near or opposite the west curb line of Lyon street. She testified that as she walked from the curb line out toward the track a westbound ear passed her and that she glanced at it as it went by and that she never thought of looking toward the east and therefore did not see the car which was following the one that passed her.

There is no issue or question about her negligence in walking upon the track under the circumstances. The issue is as to whether the motorman in charge of the car saw or by the exercise of ordinary care could have seen plaintiff on the track or approaching the track in dangerous proximity thereto apparently oblivious of the approach of his car in time to have warned her by signals or to have checked the speed of the car or to have brought it to a stop in time to have averted the collision. In crossing the public street plaintiff was at a place where she had a right to be and at a place where the exercise of ordinary care required the motorman to be on the lookout for persons passing over or upon the track.

The evidence for the plaintiff tends to show that at a point one hundred and eighteen feet east of the point of collision a witness on the sidewalk on the south side of Commercial street observed the car which struck plaintiff going west at a speed of about ten or twelve miles an hour, at which time he saw the plaintiff slowly walking between the north curb line of Commercial street and defendant’s north track on which the car was approaching and on which the accident occurred. The evidence introduced by the plaintiff is of a negative character as to warning signals; that is, the plaintiff and two or three of her witnesses, one of [295]*295whom stood at or near the end of the sidewalk running from Lyon into Commercial street, and another (the witness who observed the car and the old lady from the point one hundred and eighteen feet from the point of contact) all swear that they did not hear any alarm, signals, none swearing positively that alarm signals were not in fact sounded. In this respect there is a square conflict in the evidence because the motorman, conductor, and three or four disinterested witnesses who were passengers on the ear and others in the vicinity of the place of collision, swear positively that their attention was called to the violent manner in which .the motorman was ringing the gong and that it caused them to look to see what was the matter and that they observed the plaintiff on or near the track when the car was some fifty to thirty-five feet east of the point of contact. The evidence of the defendant shows that the car was about thirty feet in length. Plaintiff’s witness, Mrs. Williams, who stood at the corner of Lyon and Commercial streets, testified that when she first saw the old lady she was at about the middle of the track; that at that time she noticed that the car was distant from plaintiff about a car’s length and a half; that at the same time she noticed an expression on the motorman’s face which indicated to her that he was about to run over something, and that it was then that she turned and saw the old lady on the track, and that she turned her head to avoid seeing the collision. It appears that the witness, Mrs. Williams, had been directing her attention toward the east and that the plaintiff had passed behind her and started across Commercial. When she realized that an accident was about to occur, with the old lady on the north track at about the center thereof and the car only the distance of a car’s length and a half away, she noticed that the motorman was seared and she turned away and does not know whether he did anything to check or stop the car. Another witness for plaintiff (the one who stood at the point one [296]*296hundred and eighteen feet from the point of contact) did not see the car strike the plaintiff. He testified that he noticed the car and noticed the old lady and then did not continue to watch the car.

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Bluebook (online)
165 S.W. 346, 180 Mo. App. 287, 1914 Mo. App. LEXIS 245, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/quinley-v-springfield-traction-co-moctapp-1914.