McCaw v. Union Traction Co.

Citations

• 205 Pa. 271
• 54 A. 893
• 1903 Pa. LEXIS 559

Syllabus

<p>Negligence — Street railways — Overcrowding of cars.</p> <p>Where a street railway company permits its ears to be overcrowded, additional care and precaution must be exercised by the conductor and motorman to protect the passengers against resultant danger.</p> <p>A street railway company cannot invite or permit passengers to board its cars beyond their normal capacity and not be responsible for danger which necessarily results from their overcrowded condition. If a passenger is permitted to enter a car having no vacant place except on the platform and the conductor accepts his fare, he is justified in standing on the platform if he exercises proper care in doing so; and by receiving him the carrier undertakes and gives him assurances that it will take care of him and guard him against accident as far as the circumstances permit.</p> <p>In an action against a street railway company by a passenger to recover damages for personal injuries, the evidence for the plaintiff, although contradicted in many particulars, tended to show that when plaintiff entered the car, he took a seat, and that subsequently he arose and gave Ms seat to an elderly woman and stood in the aisle near the front door. After-wards the car became very much crowded, and plaintiff, at the conductor’s request, went out upon the front platform and stood on the extreme end of one side of it, supporting himself by holding the brass bar under the window. While in this position the car was run very rapidly over the tracks of a steam railroad and down a grade from the tracks. The conductor who had preceded the car at the crossing, jumped upon the front steps on the side opposite to where the plaintiff was standing, and in doing so pushed other passengers who were on the platform, against the plaintiff, causing him to lose his hold on the bar, and fall under the wheels of the car. Held, that the case was for the jury, and that a verdict for plaintiff should be sustained.</p>