Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway Co. v. Holloway

Citations

• 71 Kan. 1
• 80 P. 31
• 1905 Kan. LEXIS 83

Syllabus

<p>SYLLABUS BY THE COURT.</p> <p>1. Railroads — Injury to Passenger. When a person enters a railroad station and purchases a ticket, intending to take a passenger-train soon to arrive, he acquires the status of a passenger, and it becomes the duty of the railroad company to exercise reasonable care to provide him a safe approach to the train and reasonable time and opportunity to get on board.</p> <p>2. -Negligent Running of Trains at Station. The running of a freight-train between a station and a passenger-train, thus blocking the access of passengers to the passenger-train during the time it stops at the station, is negligence'as to waiting passengers who suffer injury by reason of insufficient opportunity to get on board.</p> <p>3 -Boarding a Moving Train. An attempt of a passenger to board a moving train, although attended with some danger, is not, under all circumstances, contributory negligence.</p> <p>4. - Obvious Danger — Contributory Negligence. If the speed of the train and the difficulties in the way of boarding it are so obviously dangerous that a person of ordinary prudence would not attempt to get on the train, a passenger who makes the attempt and is injured is guilty of such contributory negligence as will bar a recovery.</p> <p>5. -- Contributory Negligence Held a Question for the Jury. In this case an injured passenger — a strong, able-bodied man, accustomed to getting on and off cars — attempted to board a train moving at the rate of about four miles an hour, which he was waiting to take but which he had not been afforded a reasonable opportunity to board while it was stopped. The day was clear, and the ground where he made the attempt was smooth. Held, that it cannot be said, as a matter of law, that the attempt was so obviously dangerous as to constitute contributory negligence, and that whether it was such negligence was a proper question to leave to the jury.</p> <p>6. -- Proof of Speed of Trains. The speed of a train may be shown by an ordina