Negligence, Street railway. Practice, Civil, Exceptions, Conduct of trial: judge's charge.
In an action by a passenger against a street railway company for personal injuries caused by a box car of the defendant starting as the plaintiff was in the act of alighting, the declaration alleged as the cause of the accident that the car, "through and by reason of the negligence and carelessness of the defendant, its agents and servants, was suddenly started" as the plaintiff was in the act of alighting. At the trial of the case, there was evidence tending to show that the plaintiff, who was seventy-five years of age, asked the conductor to stop the car at a certain place and that the conductor gave a signal for that purpose, that, while the car itself was in motion, the plaintiff started for the rear door, that after the car had stopped he started to get off and, while he was doing so, a signal to start the car was given, the car started, and he was thrown; that the conductor at all times was inside the car; that there were no passengers standing inside the car and no one on the rear platform. There was no direct evidence as to who gave the signal to start the car. The presiding judge left the case to the jury with a brief charge, among other things instructing them that in order to find for the plaintiff they must be satisfied "by a fair preponderance of the evidence that the car was suddenly started either because of the ordinary starting signal given by the conductor, or by the motorman without receiving any signal. The plaintiff would not be entitled to recover simply by showing that the car started, and nothing more." The plaintiff, without calling to the judge's attention any specific objections to the charge, excepted generally to the instructions and to rulings therein contained. There was a verdict for the defendant. Held, that the exceptions must be overruled, both because the evidence did not justify a finding that the starting signal by bell was given by the conductor or by his direction, and because the charge stated the law tersely and correctly.
HAMMOND, J.
The evidence did not justify a finding that the starting signal by bell was given by the conductor or by his direction.
The charge, though brief, stated the law tersely and correctly, and is not justly open to the criticisms made by the plaintiff that it was contradictory and misleading.
Exceptions overruled.