Illinois Central Railroad v. Green

Citations

• 81 Ill. 19

Syllabus

<p>1. Negligence—contributory and comparative. It is a requisite to the liability of a railway company as a passenger carrier, that the passenger should not have been guilty of any want of ordinary care and prudence, which directly contributed to the injury.</p> <p>2. Where a passenger, while asleep, is carried beyond his station, and when the train arrives at a bridge where it stops to take water he gets up, and, without any encouragement from any one connected with the company, goes out of the car in a dark night, and, finding no brakeman, put out his foot to reach the platform, if he could, and there being no platform there, the train gave him a jerk and pulled both feet off the car, and left him hanging by one hand, and his weight pulled him loose, and he fell through the bridge, some thirty feet to the ground, and was injured, it was held, that he was guilty of such negligence as to preclude a recovery for the injury.</p> <p>3. Same—carrying passenger beyond station. In such a case, even if the company was guilty of negligence in carrying the passenger beyond his station, it would not justify him in needlessly exposing himself to danger, and the injury received had no proper connection with the act of the company, and the company can not be held responsible for any such remote and unnatural consequence thereof, as his attempting to get off at such a place.</p> <p>4. Same—in not notifying passenger not to get off on a bridge. Where a railway train stops, in the night, upon a bridge over a stream, to take water, it not being a stopping place for passengers to get on and off', the railway company is not required, by law, to notify passengers not to attempt to get off the cars at such place, and a failure to do so is not negligence.</p> <p>5. SAXB^-eompany not liable for acts of strangers. Any encouragement given to a passenger by other passengers to attempt to get off a train at a place of danger, and not a stopping place except for water, resulting in injury to h