Funk v. Hummelstown & Campbellstown Street Railway Co.

Citations

• 235 Pa. 618
• 84 A. 578
• 1912 Pa. LEXIS 599

Syllabus

<p>Negligence — Street railways — Fright of horse — Snow—Evidence.</p> <p>In an action against a street railway company to recover damages for death of plaintifPs husband, a verdict and judgment against the defendant cannot be sustained, where it appears that the accident occurred on a stormy winter’s night when the wind was blowing, and the snow driving and drifting, on a turnpike road in a rural community, where there were but few houses in the immediate vicinity; that the defendant operated a street railway in the middle of the turnpike; that piles of snow had been shoveled or drifted on both sides of the track to a height variously estimated from eighteen inches to three feet; that at the time of the accident the deceased was riding on a horse between the rails as a car approached from the opposite direction, that his horse was unmanageable; that when the motorman saw the deceased he blew the whistle and brought his car to a stop, but the horse continued to rear and plunge, and the deceased fell to the ground across the track and part way under the front of the car; and that there was no direct evidence that the car came in contact with the rider or the horse before the deceased was unseated, or to explain precisely the immediate cause of the injury of which he died.</p>