Kline ex rel. Kline v. Electric Traction Co.

Citations

• 181 Pa. 276
• 40 W.N.C. 337
• 37 A. 522
• 1897 Pa. LEXIS 541

Syllabus

<p>Negligence — Street railways — Speed of car.</p> <p>A street railway car must be kept well in hand and the speed must not be so great as to make this impossible or to endanger the safety of the public using the streets with reasonable care. The greatest rate of speed consistent with the safety of other persons using the street or highway may be maintained, and the court cannot say that any rate of speed that does not transcend these limits is negligent, or should be submitted to the juiy as sufficient to justify a verdict against the railway company.</p> <p>Negligence — Street railways — Infant—Speed of car — Signal—Evidence.</p> <p>In an action against a street railway company to recover damages for personal injuries to an infant of tender age, it appeared that the child, at afiout 8 o’clock in the evening of a day late in June, was playing with several other children upon one side of a street on which there was a street railway track. As a car was rapidly approaching the child suddenly started to run across the street in front of the car and reached the tradk just in time to be hit by it. The headlight on the front of the car was burning. The motorman appeared to have been watching and, upon discovering the movement of the child, he turned off the current and applied the brake with such vigor as to stop the car within from twenty to forty feet. The noise made in suddenly stopping the car attracted attention in the neighboring dwellings. Witnesses for the plaintiff testified that the speed of the car was greater than usual. The car did not stop or give a signal at the crossing last passed by the car, half a square or more from the place of the accident. It appeared, however, that this was not a regular stopping place, and that cars stopped only at this crossing when there were passengers to get on or off. Held, that there was not sufficient evidence of the company’s negligence to justify the submission of the case to the jury.</p>