Skinner v. Atchison, T. & S. F. R. Co.

39 F. 188, 1889 U.S. App. LEXIS 2269

• Court: U.S. Circuit Court for the Northern District of Illnois
• Decided: June 20, 1889
• Status: Published

Opinion

Jenkins, J.,

(orally.') In disposing of this motion the courtis obliged to consider the evidence in the light that is most favorable to the plaintiff, and give to the plaintiff the benefit of all the inferences from the facts which the jury would have a right to draw. The tacts are within small compass. The plaintiff was a passenger, and was entitled to the protection of a passenger from the defendant, and was entitled from the defendant to the highest degree of practical skill and care to protect her from injury. So far as the evidence discloses, everything connected with the train was in perfect order. She was ascending the steps of the car, lawfully, upon invitation from the official who supervised the station where the train was standing, and upon reaching the second step she was injured by the falling of this brakeman, who, in the discharge of Ms duty, had ascended the rail for the purpose of coupling the bell-rope. The court must assume that the version which the plaintiff gives of that transaction is the correct one, and that the brakeman had one foot upon the forward rail of one car and the other foot upon the rear rail of the other car, stretched across. That seems to be the fact that the plaintiff’s testimony tends to establish. The court must also assume that while in the discharge of that duty, so situated, he accidentally slipped, fell, and injured the plaintiff. The declaration is founded on the careless and negligent manner in which the brakeman discharged his duty, and the only two questions in the case to be determined upon this motion are—First, whether the company failed to discharge the duty which it owed to the plaintiff as a passenger; and, second, whether the brakeman was negligent in the discharge of the duty committed to his care. The defendant owed, as I have said, care and protection to the plaintiff,—such care and protection as, in the ordinary management and operation of trains, the highest degree of skill and care could exercise properly to protect her. I have carefully considered and reflected upon the evidence and upon the duty which this defendant owed, and the court is unable to see wherein the negligence of the defendant consisted. If the facts occurred as related by the brakeman, he was discharging his duty in the ordinary, usual, and customary mode, and his foot was pushed, off by a passenger or some one from the interior of the car. If that were so, then he was simply the medium by which injury was inflicted upon the plaintiff through the act of some one else, and there would be no more liability upon the part of the company than if this passenger had rushed out upon the platform against the plaintiff, and thrown her down, in which case, I take it, there could be no question of liability on the part of the company. If, on the other hand, standing upon the two rails, as the plaintiff’s witnesses have testified, he accidentally slipped and fell against the plaintiff, there is then no negligence proven either upon the part of the company or upon the part of the brakeman. It is one of those accidents that will happen. It is unusual, and of which every traveler assumes the risk when it has not been produced by the act of the company, or the omission of its duty, or by the negligent act of its agents. The court has been able to discover in this case no ground of legal liability upon the part of the defendant, and, however much it regrets the injury which the plaintiff has suffered, it could not discharge its duty under the law by permitting the case to go to the jury, because should there be a verdict for the plaintiff it would be the duty of the court to set it aside.

Plaintiff moved for leave to take a nonsuit, which was allowed.