Saxton v. Pittsburg Railways Co.

Citations

• 219 Pa. 492
• 68 A. 1022
• 1908 Pa. LEXIS 608

Syllabus

<p>Negligence — Street railways — Infant—Duty of parent.</p> <p>In an action against a street railway company to recover damages for personal injuries to a boy five years old, it appeared that at the time of the accident the boy got on a step of the platform of a car standing at a crossing. The platform was entirely closed by wooden doors with glass windows in the upper panels. He took hold of a horizontal' bar fástened to • the woodwork of the door a few inches below the glass. He testified that after the car was in motion the motorman looked through the glass, and saw him and shook the door and caused him to fall. This testimony was denied by the motorman: who testified that he did not see the boy nor shake the door. Held,, that on the conflicting testimony, -the case, was for the jury.</p> <p>In such a case it appeared that the boy had gone almost daily to the home of his aunt near by, and had on a few occasions' gone with his cousin, a boy sixteen; years old, to deliver papers in the street. His parents knew that he had done this once or twice, but did not know that he was in the habit of doing it, and on the occasion of his injury they did not know that he had left his aunt’s house, or was likely to do so. Held, that the father of the boy under the circumstances was not precluded from recovering because he permitted his son to go on the street in a business part of the city unattended.</p> <p>Negligence — Street railways — Improper remarks of counsel.</p> <p>In a negligence case against a street railway a judgment and verdict for the plaintiff will be reversed, where the counsel for the plaintiff in his address to the jury states, without any foundation in fact, that there had been a suppression of evidence and further says to the jury: “I ask you in money to make this company, with its earnings, and out of its earnings, out of its millions, for which it is in this business— it is not a charity, it is not a benevolence, it is a business just as hard and cold as