BENNICK, Presiding Judge.
This is an action for damages for personal injuries sustained by plaintiff, Rhonda Hall, while attempting to alight from one of defendant St. Louis Public Service Company's buses on which she was a passenger.
Upon a trial to a jury a verdict was returned in favor of plaintiff and against defendant, for the sum of $3,500. Judgment was thereupon entered in conformity with the verdict. In due time defendant filed its motion for a new trial and to have the verdict and judgment set aside and judgment entered for defendant in accordance with its motion for a directed verdict. Upon the overruling of such motion defendant gave notice of appeal, and by proper successive steps has caused the case to be transferred to this court for our review.
The accident happened about four o'clock in the afternoon of October 13, 1949. Plaintiff testified that the bus had stopped for her to alight in response to a signal she had given as she approached her destination. She was descending the steps leading down at the exit and was in the act of passing through the open door when the doors closed upon her and held her fast. At the same moment the driver started the bus forward carrying her along with it until he brought it to a stop "real fast" upon hearing her own screams and those of another passenger. When the doors were opened to release her she fell out into the street upon her hands and knees and received the injuries for which she has sued.
The case was submitted upon the theory of res ipsa loquitur which defendant claims was error upon the ground that the petition had charged specific negligence, and that in any event the evidence had fully disclosed the specific negligence responsible for plaintiff's injury. If defendant is correct in such contention, it was indeed error to submit the case as one within the application of res ipsa loquitur, since if specific negligence was either pleaded or proved, recovery under the doctrine of res ipsa loquitur was thereupon denied. Lukitsch v. St. Louis Public Service Co., 362 Mo. 1071, 246 S.W.2d 749; Venditti v. St. Louis Public Service Co., 360 Mo. 42, 226 S.W.2d 599.
In her petition plaintiff charged that "while the operation and control and the movement of the doors of said bus were wholly, solely and exclusively within the control of the defendant, its agent and servant," and while plaintiff was in the act of alighting from the bus the doors suddenly and violently closed upon her, causing her to be injured "as a direct and proximate result of the negligence and carelessness of the defendant, its agent and servant, as aforesaid".
The first question in the case is whether such charge was one of specific negligence or merely one of general negligence.
We know of no departure from the rule that where there is a corporate defendant as in the case at bar the question of whether a petition charges specific or general negligence depends upon whether it contains an averment as to the identity of the particular servant for whose negligence the defendant is called upon to respond and also points out wherein and in what respect such servant was guilty of negligence. Lammert v. Wells, 321 Mo. 952, 13 S.W.2d 547; Stolovey v. Fleming, 328 Mo. 623, 8 S.W.2d 832; Given v. Midwest Paving Co., Mo.Sup., 53 S.W.2d 23, 27; Duggan v. St. Louis Public Service Co., Mo.App., 56 S.W.2d 626; Smith v. Terminal R. R. Ass'n of St. Louis, Mo.App., 160 S.W.2d 476.
In the present instance it goes without saying that the reference in the petition to the "agent and servant" of defendant was a reference to the operator of the bus. The petition did therefore identify the particular servant of defendant whose negligence "as aforesaid" was subsequently charged to have been the direct and proximate cause of plaintiff's injury.
Moreover the petition also pointed out the precise respect in which the operator had been guilty of negligence. The thing of which plaintiff complained was that as she was in the act of alighting from the bus, the doors suddenly and violently closed upon her. Standing alone, this would undoubtedly have been no more than a charge of general negligence. This for the reason that even though it is unquestionably negligence to close the doors upon an alighting passenger, the mere charge that the doors closed would not have itself revealed whether their closing was by reason of the act of the operator, or because of a mechanical defect or some other reason for which the operator was not himself responsible.
However plaintiff did not leave this feature of the case in doubt. Instead she averred that the movement of the doors was a matter wholly, solely, and exclusively within the control of defendant, its agent and servant, or, in other words, the operator. She thereby excluded the consideration of any negligence other than that for which the operator was personally responsible; and she identified the operator's definite negligent act — the closing of the doors upon her at a time when she was in the act of alighting from the bus. While she might perhaps have gone into greater detail in relating the circumstances of the occurrence, she was not required to plead her evidence, but it sufficed that she be reasonably certain in describing the act which caused her injury, and that she allege that the act was negligently done. Finn v. United Rys. Co. of St. Louis, Mo.App., 267 S.W. 416; Rueter v. Terminal R. Ass'n of St. Louis, Mo.App., 261 S.W. 713; Wyler v. Ratican, 150 Mo.App. 474, 131 S.W. 155. Taking the petition in its entirety and giving all the language used its natural and logical effect, we cannot escape the conclusion that the charge was one of specific negligence, and is to be so construed in determining the propriety of the manner of submission of the issue of defendant's liability. Hoffman v. St. Louis Public Service Co., Mo.Sup., 255 S.W.2d 736, 741.
Up to this point in our discussion we have only been concerned with the construction to be placed upon the petition. As we have already pointed out, the cause of action asserted was based upon the closing of the doors on plaintiff while she was in the act of alighting from the bus; and the question has been whether the closing of the doors was pleaded in such a manner as to have constituted a charge of specific negligence on the part of the operator.
It is interesting to note, however, that when the evidence came in, it was revealed that the closing of the doors was not the thing that in and of itself had produced plaintiff's injury. As a matter of fact, she received no harm whatever from the mere closing of the doors, but instead was injured upon being caused to fall out into the street when the doors were opened after the bus had been started forward and then suddenly stopped in response to her screams and those of another passenger.
This is not to say that the closing of the doors on plaintiff was not the efficient cause which set in motion the chain of circumstances leading up to the injury and but for which the injury would not have been sustained. But neither would the injury have been sustained except for such sequence of events which were unquestionably attributable to the negligence of the operator. It follows, therefore, that even if there might be room for difference of opinion as to the proper construction to be placed upon the language of the petition, the proof at least showed specific negligence in such a way as to have precluded the submission of the case upon the theory of res ipsa loquitur.
The judgment of the circuit court should be reversed and the cause remanded, and it is so ordered.
ANDERSON and HOLMAN, JJ., concur.