Coll v. Easton Transit Co.

Citations

• 180 Pa. 618
• 37 A. 89
• 1897 Pa. LEXIS 976

Syllabus

<p>Negligence— Street railways — Question for jury.</p> <p>In an action against a street railway company to recover damages for the death of plaintiff’s husband who was run over by defendant’s car, it appeared that at the time of the accident the car was running after dark on a declining grade on a road which passed along the top of an embankment. Between the track of the railway and the edge of the embankment was a footpath covered with cinders, and varying in width from four to six feet. At the outer edge of the path was a guard rail supported by posts. The roadbed was in an unfinished condition; the earth which had been thrown out in making ail excavation for the track had not been replaced, the ties were .exposed and the rails projected above the surface of the road. The deceased when last seen before the accident was on the footpath eighty or ninety feet from the car. A lineman in the employ of the defendant who had been riding with the motorman on the front platform of the car was seen by a witness to jump from the car and to run forward in advance of it. The speed of the car was not checked until it was brought to a sudden stop. The deceased was then found behind the car, his legs hhving been run over by it, and the lineman had hold of him. Held, that as inferences of the company’s negligence could be drawn from the evidence the case was for the jury.</p> <p>Evidence — Bes gestee — Declarations.</p> <p>The res geste may be defined as those circumstances which are the undesigned incidents of a particular litigated act and which are admissible when illustrative of such act. These incidents may be separated from the act by a lapse of time more or less appreciable. They may consist of speeches of any one concerned, whether participant or bystander; they may comprise things left undone as well as things done. Their sole distinguishing feature is that they should be necessary incidents of the litigated act; necessary in this sense, that they are part of the immedia