Keenan v. Union Traction Co.

Citations

• 202 Pa. 107
• 51 A. 742
• 1902 Pa. LEXIS 473

Syllabus

<p>Negligence — Street railways — Look and listen — Collision between wagon and car — Contributory negligence.</p> <p>In an action against a street railway company to recover damages for personal injuries sustained in a collision between a car and a wagon which plaintiff was driving, it appeared that the collision occurred on a country road, upon which the tracks of the defendant’s road were laid. The east rail of the north track, upon which the car ran into the wagon, was ten feet from the open gateway of a residence. The plaintiff testified that on the day of the accident he had delivered ice cream at the residence, and when leaving the property stopped his team, a one-horse wagon, inside the open gateway, and that the distance from his horse’s head to the entrance was about fifteen feet; that his seat in the wagon was about ten feet from the horse’s head; that the wagon was a closed one all the way to the front; and that he climbed out on the swingletree of the wagon far enough to get clear of the curtains and look down the road; that, after he had so looked, and there was no car in sight, he climbed back into his wagon, sat back on the seat between the curtained sides, took up the lines, walked his horse out of the premises with his view on each side cut off and did not see the car until he was in the center of the track and his wagon was struck. At the point within the gate where the plaintiff stopped to look, a distance of about thirty-five feet from the track, he had an unobstructed view of 319 feet in the direction from which the car was coming, and there was nothing to obstruct this view until the track was reached. Held, that a nonsuit was properly entered.</p> <p>Mestrezat, J., dissents.</p>