Osborne v. Philadelphia & Reading Railway Co.

Citations

• 263 Pa. 472
• 106 A. 732
• 1919 Pa. LEXIS 457

Syllabus

<p>Negligence — Railroads — Trespaseei — Children upon railroad embankment — Duty to use ordinary care.</p> <p>1. A boy nine years old, while seated on a plank projecting from an embankment of a railroad right-of-way, is a trespasser to whom the railroad company owes the duty of exercising ordinary care to avoid injuring him by the operation of its trains.</p> <p>2. A railroad company is not liable for injuries sustained by a small boy having been struck by a piece of ice thrown from a passing train by an employee of the company while the boy was seated on a plank projecting from the side of the railroad embankment about six feet below the level of the tracks and opposite a vacant lot used by children as a common playground, where it appears that although the baggagemaster knew that an employee of the company who used the train as a passenger to return home from his work, had been in. the habit of dropping a piece of ice from the train at that point, there was no evidence to show that the employee who threw the ice from the car or the crew of the train, had, at any time seen children at or near the place of the accident, or that the embankment of the railroad constituted a part within the limits of a common playground.</p> <p>3. It is no part of a baggageman’s duty to be observant of conditions along the tracks with respect to trespassers on the railroad’s property, or to observe and report conditions which in his judgment required extra care with respect to people not passengers.</p>