Chittick v. Philadelphia Rapid Transit Co.

Citations

• 224 Pa. 13
• 73 A. 4
• 1909 Pa. LEXIS 718

Syllabus

<p>Negligence — Street railways — Electrical explosion — Nervous shock— Proximate and remote cause.</p> <p>1. A street railway company owes to persons who are not its passengers or servants the duty of not so wantonly or recklessly, or negligently using its property as to cause injury to person or property. It is bound to know what the natural and probable consequence of its negligent act will be, and it will be answerable in damages for all injuries which ought to have been anticipated and which could have been provided against if the duty rested upon it to foresee such consequences,, and it will not be liable in damages for an occurrence so far outside of usual experience and of such an extraordinary character that it could not have been anticipated as the natural and probable result of the neg-1 ligent act complained of; and this rule certainly applies where the juries sustained result from mental suffering, or from a severe nervous shock, or from fright, occasioned by the unusual occurrence.</p> <p>2. In an action by a woman against a street railway company to recover damages for personal injuries, it appeared that at the time of the accident a motorman of the defendant negligently propelled his car so as to cause the trolley pole to strike a steel brace which was being raised into its place in the superstructure of an elevated railroad, with the re-, suit that the brace struck the trolley wire, causing a violent electrical!'« explosion which was variously described by the witnesses as a ball of fire, a brilliant flash and a blinding light. The plaintiff was seated at the time near an open window of her dwelling house 200 or 300 feet distant, and was thrown, or in some manner fell from the chair to the floor. In the fall she received some bruises to her person, but these were of temporary character, and not serious. She was blinded temporarily by the brilliant electric flash, suffered pain in her eyes, followed by some impairment of vision, and nervous weakness.