Baltimore Traction Co. v. Helms

Citations

• 84 Md. 515
• 36 L.R.A. 215
• 36 A. 119
• 1897 Md. LEXIS 3

Syllabus

<p>Contributory Negligence— Walking from Behind Street Car Upon the Next Track Without Looking for Approaching Cars—Reciprocal Duties of Pedestrians and Street Railways.</p> <p>Plaintiff, a passenger on an electric street railway company, alighted from a car and, passing behind it, walked slowly upon the next track where he was struck by a car coming from the opposite direction. He knew that cars were running upon this track at short intervals, and, the view being unobstructed, if he had looked he could have seen the approaching car and he could have stopped with safety in the space between the two tracks. The car which struck the plaintiff was running at a higher rate of speed than that prescribed by municipal ordinance. Held, that the plaintiff was guilty of such contributory negligence as to preclude a recovery.</p> <p>The degree of care which should be exercised by a person in crossing highways depends upon the circumstances of each case.</p> <p>Failure to stop and look before crossing a street railway does not always constitute such contributory negligence per se as to prevent a recovery for an injury caused by another’s negligence.</p> <p>The public and street railway companies have equal rights to use the streets of a city, and the employees of the latter are bound to keep a constant lookout for persons approaching the tracks, not only at crossings but along the whole line of the railway, because pedestrians have the right to cross the street at any point.</p> <p>But in the exercise of this right of crossing streets pedestrians should use their senses to ascertain whether a car is approaching. And one who deliberately walks out from behind a street car, from which he has alighted, and attempts to cross the adjoining track without using his powers of observation, and is injured by a car approaching from the opposite direction, which injury could have been avoided by the use of the most ordinary care, is not entitled to recover damages for such injury.</p> <p>I