Algard v. Philadelphia Rapid Transit Co.

Citations

• 266 Pa. 390
• 109 A. 647
• 1920 Pa. LEXIS 579

Syllabus

<p>Negligence — Street railways — Collision between trolley car and wagon — Obstruction of street — Driving on tracks — Duty of motorman— Contributory negligence — Absence of light — Proximate cause — Anticipating care.</p> <p>1. While, ordinarily, a motorman is under no duty to anticipate an approaching vehicle or car westward on an eastbound track, yet where he knows that the street is obstructed and closed on the side usually devoted to westbound traffic, he is bound to anticipate and watch out for vehicles approaching on the eastbound track.</p> <p>2. If the extent of a motorman’s vision through the window in front of him, is diminished or interfered with by drizzling rain falling on the glass at the time, it is his duty to remove the hindrance to his view of the track, before proceeding.</p> <p>3. In an action against a street railway company to recover damages for personal injuries to a driver of a wagon injured in a collision with an electric car, the plaintiff cannot be convicted of contributory negligence as a matter of law, if there is nothing to show conclusively that the absence of a light was a contributing cause to the collision, or that the presence of a light, had the plaintiff carried one, might have aided the motorman to see the wagon.</p> <p>4. In such a case, where it appears that the defendant operated a double track railway on the street where the collision occurred, that the street was obstructed on the side usually devoted to westbound traffic, necessitating the use of the eastbound track for both eastbound and westbound traffic, and that plaintiff was obliged to turn from the westbound track into the eastbound track to avoid the obstruction, it was the plaintiff’s duty again to resume his proper position on the westbound portion of the roadway after having passed the obstructions; but he could not be held negligent, as a matter of law, merely because, with obstructions continuing on the north, he followed the course of westbound car traffic