Georgia Pacific Railway Co. v. West

Citations

• 66 Miss. 310
• 6 So. 207

Syllabus

<p>1. Instructions. Verbal inaccuracies. Verdict not disturbed.</p> <p>A verdict, where there is sufficient evidence to sustain it, will not be disturbed because of verbal inaccuracies in some of the instructions, if they be otherwise correct, and their substantial meaning when taken together is plain.</p> <p>2. Railroads. . Duty to passengers. Must stop reasonable time.</p> <p>Ordinarily the employees in charge of a train do not owe a duty to passengers on board to stop longer than is sufficient for them safely and conveniently to get off; but even after the usual stop, it is negligence for them to start the train if they know, or have reason to believe, that a passenger is in the act of alighting, or that the passenger intending to alight, from age or infirmity, requires a longer time than usual to alight.</p> <p>3. Contributory Negligence. Instruction.</p> <p>The court properly refused to instruct that it is contributory negligence per se for a passenger to alight from a train on the platform of the station if the train is in motion, where the only evidence as to the train’s failure to stop is that it was barely moving, and this is coupled with the statement that the passenger was being assisted to alight by an employee in charge of the train.</p> <p>4. Instructions. Want of applicability, when objected to.</p> <p>Where instructions, applicable to the evidence, are objected to because not applicable to the issue made by the pleadings, this objection should be made when the instructions are presented, for then an immediate amendment of the pleadings can be had.</p>