Florida East Coast Railway Co. v. Carter

Citations

• 67 Fla. 335
• 65 So. 254

Syllabus

<p>1. In judging of the sufficiency of a declaration in a suit for damages for personal injuries the essentials of such a declaration set forth in the case of German-American Lumber Co. v. Brock, 55 Fla. 577, 46 South. Rep. 740, are approved and applied.</p> <p>2. Railroad companies have the power to make reasonable regulations for the management of their trains, and one who buys a ticket is hound to inform himself of the rules and regulations of the company governing the transit and conduct of the trains upon which he proposes to travel. He should inform. himself, when about to take passage on a railroad train, when, where and how he can go, or stop, according to the regulations of the railroad company.</p> <p>3. Carriers are held to the highest degree of care for the safety of passengers, and passengers should use ordinai'y care to protect themselves in getting on or off trains, when safe and suitable means of boarding or alighting from trains are provided. They must take the responsibility of the ordinary incidents of travel, including the stoppage of cars required by statute at railway junctions, and must govern themselves accordingly.</p> <p>4. By failing to enforce a rule, a railroad company may allow it to become a dead letter, and in effect waive, abandon or abrogate it.</p> <p>5. Where a railroad company fails to enforce one of its rules and a passenger is injured in neglecting to observe it, under our statutes the mere contributory negligence of the passenger is not an absolute bar to recovery.</p> <p>O. Where passengers habitually get off the trains at a point where they are not invited to get off, and no effectual means are attempted to be used to imevent them from doing so, there is a duty on the company to see that they have a safe opportunity to alight.</p> <p>7. An ante mortem statement of a witness purporting to give what the plaintiff in a suit for damages for a personal injury said to him as to how she was injured, tending to contradict her testim