Walbridge v. Schuylkill Electric Railway Co.

Citations

• 190 Pa. 274
• 42 A. 689
• 1899 Pa. LEXIS 1016

Syllabus

<p>Negligence — Street railways — Infant—Question for jury.</p> <p>In an action by a boy six years old against a street railway company to recover damages for personal injuries, the evidence showed that immediately before the accident the plaintiff was playing, about forty feet from the curb line of the street, with a number of other children on a vacant lot abutting on the north side of the street upon which defendant’s electric railway was operated. This lot was a usual playground for children, and was known to be so by the motorman of the car by which plaintiff was struck. Plaintiff suddenly ran out from the group of other children, without stopping, to and upon the street, and came in contact with the car as soon as he reached the railway track. The distance from the curb to the track was about five feet. The car approached the place of the accident on a descending grade. The motorman testified that he was running his car by gravity, at the rate of about five or six miles per hour, and that he could stop his car by means of the brake inside of fifteen or twenty feet, but if he had been using the electric current he could have reversed and stopped in half of that distance. Three witnesses testified that the car was run at a high rate of speed. Held, that the case was for the jury.</p>