Aiken v. Pennsylvania R.

Citations

• 130 Pa. 380
• 18 A. 619
• 1889 Pa. LEXIS 1198

Syllabus

<p>[To be reported.]</p> <p>1. The rule, that, before crossing a railroad track, a person must stop, look and listen, applies to persons walking equally as to persons driving. It is not a rule of evidence, but a rule of law, peremptory, absolute and unbending; and a failure so to stop is not merely evidence of negligence, but negligence per se.</p> <p>2. When, in an action against a railroad company for the negligent killing of a person at a street crossing, the uncontradicted evidence for the plaintiff is, that the deceased was killed while voluntarily attempting to cross in front of a train, the approach of which he had seen while in a place of safety, the court should nonsuit or direct a verdict against the plaintiff.</p> <p>3. The doctrine that a man in a position of danger is not responsible for the results of an error of judgment committed in his attempt to get out of it, is to be taken with the essential qualification that he must have gotten into the danger without negligence or fault of his own: Penna. R. Co. v. Werner, 89 Pa. 59, distinguished.</p> <p>i. Evidence, in this case, as to the speed in which trains usually ran over a certain crossing was not admissible upon the issue whether or not a particular train was run over it at a negligent rate of speed, nor was it rendered admissible by testimony that the train in question was going at about the usdal rate.</p>