Gawronski v. McAdoo

Citations

• 266 Pa. 449
• 109 A. 763
• 1920 Pa. LEXIS 589

Syllabus

<p>Negligence — Bcdlroads—Infmts-r-Nards—Playing in yards— Sitting on freight cars — Notice — Burden of proof — Proximate cause — Sequence of events — No intervention of contributing cause —Defendant in possession of instrumentalities — Presumption —Admissions at trial — Case for jury.</p> <p>1. Where a railroad company permits its yards or tracks to be used as a playground for children, the corporation is required to operate its rolling stock with due care to avoid injuring such children, and the ordinary rule, as to the limited measure of duty owing to trespassers, is inapplicable.</p> <p>2. One fixed with a duty to regard the safety of children, is obliged reasonably to anticipate they will do the ordinary and natural things which may be looked for from them under the circumstances.</p> <p>3. In an action against a railroad company to recover damages for personal injuries to .a boy eight years old, injured while on a freight car standing with others, in an open railroad yard of defendant, the case is for the jury, where the evidence tends to show that the yard in question was triangular in form, with tracks on two sides of the triangle, and an open space in the centre; that this space had been very frequently used for years, without objection by defendants, as a playground by the boys in the neighborhood; that, on the day of the accident, the plaintiff and fifteen other boys had for at least three quarters of an hour before the accident been seated on the freight cars, looking at a ball game, in full view of one of defendant’s watchmen and others of its employees; that the cars in question, unattached to any motor power, were stationed at the place where defendant “put cars that stand for some time”; that the boys had been “playing” on or around the cars for “over three months”; that they had been on top of them “a couple of times,” and the watchman was in view “every day” they played around or sat on top of them; that the accident was caused by a runaway engine