Van Natta v. People's Street Railway, Electric Light & Power Co.

34 S.W. 505, 133 Mo. 13, 1896 Mo. LEXIS 112
CourtSupreme Court of Missouri
DecidedMarch 3, 1896
StatusPublished
Cited by12 cases

This text of 34 S.W. 505 (Van Natta v. People's Street Railway, Electric Light & Power Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Missouri primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Van Natta v. People's Street Railway, Electric Light & Power Co., 34 S.W. 505, 133 Mo. 13, 1896 Mo. LEXIS 112 (Mo. 1896).

Opinion

Burgess, J.

Prom a judgment in favor of plaintiff, a boy nine years of age, in the sum of $7,000, against defendants for personal injuries sustained by [17]*17him by being run over by the cars of defendant company, defendants appealed.

The accident happened about half past 10 o’clock in the forenoon of the twentieth day of July, 1892, at the intersection of Frederick avenue with Eleventh and Faraón streets in the city of St. Joseph, Missouri. At that time defendant company owned and operated by electricity a double track line of street railway, the tracks of which lie parallel with each other, near the center of the avenue, as close together as they can be laid, so as to permit the ears to pass each other. The tracks run east and west. Oars moving east do so on the south track, while those moving west do so on the north track.

Plaintiff, his brother, and Clarence Corby, desiring to go west to Eleventh street, boarded a car (number 19) at the east end of the avenue. When the car arrived at Eleventh street, the point at which plaintiff and his companions desired to alight, the conductor in charge of the car gave the usual signal to the motorman for the car to stop, in order that they might do so. The evidence as to whether or not the car came to a full stop before the boys started to alight, as to what transpired there at that time, and especially as to what was said and done by the conductor, was conflicting. Just as the boys had alighted, and started around the rear end of the car toward the sidewalk on the south side of the avenue, a car (number 21) pulled up from the west, ran against the plaintiff and his brother knocking them down, the plaintiff going under the car, his left leg was caught in the cogwheels which propel the car, and he shoved along on his back five or six feet before the car was stopped. Several efforts to release plaintiff’s leg, which was badly crushed below the knee, from the cogwheels, proving unavailing, it [18]*18became necessary to amputate it before he could be removed from under the car. This car was stopped at the intersection of the line of Eleventh street with Frederick avenue. It also appeared that a car moving at the same rate of speed that this was could be stopped in eight or ten feet.

An ordinance of the city of St. Joseph was read in evidence, which required all street railway companies to provide each car with a fender “placed not more than two inches from the ground or surface of the street,” and to “entirely surround the running gear of the car. Such fender shall be pointed at each end of the car, shall extend as far as the platform and shall be so constructed and placed as to afford the best possible protection to persons with whom such car might come in contact.” There were no fenders on the car at the time of the accident, but it was shown to have had fenders on it the day next thereafter.

Defendant introduced evidence tending to show that the cars could not be run with fenders upon them, such as required by the ordinance, that a gutter at Edmund crosses the track, and every time the car passed over the gutter, the car dipped so that the fenders were broken off. In opposition to this, defendant’s own servants swore that fenders sometimes lasted a week; that every trip over the gutter did not break them off; that defendant had men in its employ whose duty it was to repair and replace the fenders. Plaintiff’s evidence showed that the fenders remained on the cars for a greater part of a month.

The defendant, John R. Owens, after the accident, was appointed receiver of the defendants’ railway and property, and he was, therefore, made a party defendant in the cause.

Plaintiff’s first instruction is criticised in that it is insisted that it submitted to the jury questions not [19]*19based on any evidence; left them to determine whether or not the east bound ear passed the west bound car at a rapid rate of speed, when all the evidence and physical facts showed to the contrary, and did not advise them as to the constituent elements of negligence.

The evidence with respect to the rate of speed at which the car that caused the injury was moving at the time placed it from three and one half to five miles an hour; two witnesses stated about twice as fast as a man can ordinarily walk, and one witness about three times as fast as he could walk. The cars passed each other in the middle or near the east line of Eleventh street, and the ordinance of the city which was read in evidence, provides that cars shall not be stopped on crosswalks nor in front of intersecting streets, but that they shall stop with the rear platform partly over the crosswalks when allowing passengers to alight.

What constitutes negligence in any given case, must necessarily depend upon the facts connected with the accident which is claimed to have been occasioned thereby, and the place where it occurred. What would be a negligent rate of speed for an electric street car in one locality, would not necessarily be so in another part of the same city or the same street. Plaintiff’s right to the use of the street where the accident occurred was concurrent with that of defendant company. It happened under circumstances where and when the law required of those in charge of the car the exercise of such care and watchfulness, including its rate of speed, as the circumstances of the ease, and the place where the accident occurred. Under the facts and circumstances in evidence the court would not have been justified in declaring as a matter of law, that the car was not moving at a rapid rate of speed at the time of the accident. There was sufficient evidence on this question to justify giving the instruction.

[20]*20It is . further, insisted that this instruction is vicious, in that it does not advise the jury what facts would constitute negligence on the part of those in charge of the car which ran over the plaintiff. This objection does not seem to be well taken. After instructing the jury that “if they find from the evidence that defendant’s road consisted of two tracks, which were in close proximity to each other; that plaintiff was a passenger in its west bound car upon the north track; that the car stopped to permit him to alight; that on alighting from said car plaintiff passed in the rear of said west bound car and attempted to cross the south track of defendant’s road to the sidewalk on said street; that the servants of defendant in charge of the east bound car as they approached the west bound car saw that it was stationary and knew that their view of the street was obstructed by the stationary west bound car; and you further find that said servants in charge of said east bound car approached said stationary car while plaintiff was alighting from the same, at a rapid rate of speed, without giving any signal to warn plaintiff of their approach and without checking the speed of the same, and in so doing were guilty of negligence, and in consequence thereof the plaintiff * * * was knocked-down and injured,” etc. The instruction is unusually full, and covers any and all grounds of objection urged against it.

But even if it were faulty in that it did not tell the jury what facts would constitute negligence on the part of defendant, when it is read in connection with defendants’ first instruction, as it should be, any such suspicion is dispelled, as that instruction is the counterpart of plaintiff’s and covers any supposed omissions or defects therein.

The second instruction given for plaintiff is as follows:

[21]*21“2.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
34 S.W. 505, 133 Mo. 13, 1896 Mo. LEXIS 112, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/van-natta-v-peoples-street-railway-electric-light-power-co-mo-1896.