Ferry v. Philadelphia Rapid Transit Co.

Citations

• 232 Pa. 403
• 81 A. 426
• 1911 Pa. LEXIS 734

Syllabus

<p>Negligence — Master and servant — Evidence—Dangerous appliance— Elevators.</p> <p>1. In negligence cases to recover damages for death though there must, of course, be affirmative proof of negligence before recovery can be had, it is not always essential that there should be an eyewitness of the occurrence. The proof may be furnished by the circumstances themselves. The test is whether they are such as'to satisfy reasonable and well balanced minds that the accident resulted from the negligence of the defendant.</p> <p>2. In an action against an employer to recover damages for the death of a workman killed by an elevator in the place of employment, the case is for the jury where the evidence tends to show that the elevator was not equipped with warning signals, although defendant had been warned by the city inspector to supply them, that it was permitted to work by electricity quietly up and down in a space not guarded from access, where workmen were at liberty to walk or stand in the use of the floor, and apparently directly in the line of their approach to an opening or doorway leading to another portion of the building, that the decedent was found in this space, and at the doorway, crushed by the elevator, and that experts testified that the elevator was dangerous, and “a trap.”</p>