White v. Seattle, Everett & Tacoma Navigation Co.

Citations

• 36 Wash. 281
• 78 P. 909
• 1904 Wash. LEXIS 551

Syllabus

<p>Carriers — Passengers—Round-trip Ticket — Injury on Wharf While Waiting for Return. One who buys a round-trip ticket for passage upon a boat, and is injured while waiting upon the company’s dock for the arrival of the boat to commence the return trip, must be regarded as a passenger on the boat, and the law governing common carriers applies.</p> <p>Carriers — Negligence — Injury to Passenger — Defect in Dock — Contributory Negligence — Evidence—Sufficiency. In an action for personal injuries sustained in stepping through a hole in the defendant’s dock, while plaintiff was waiting to board defendant’s steamer, it is error to find that the defendants were not guilty of negligence, and that the plaintiff was guilty of con-tributary negligence, from the fact that the hole was not in a direct line from the entrance to the dock and the landing place, where it appears that the dock was about 100 by 80 feet in size, that the boat, as plaintiff well knew, landed near the center of the west side, that the hole, two feet long by four and one-half Inches wide, was near the southwest corner of the dock, that the plaintiff, while waiting for the steamer,' instead of going to the waiting room, walked about the dock within boundaries well defined by stringers, and stepped into the hole, in the dark, the place being one which passengers commonly frequented, and only about thirty feet from a straight line between the waiting room and landing place; since it is the duty of a carrier to maintain its dock in a reasonably safe condition, and passengers do not commonly confine themselves to any particular space while waiting in such places.</p>