112 Pa. 551 | Pa. | 1886
delivered the opinion of the court, May 3d, 1886.
That the defendant’s driver, or conductor, was grossly negligent in compelling a child of twelve years of age to jump, and that backwards, from the platform of a moving car, no one can well deny. Even the boy Solnack knew better than that, and did what he could to prevent the accident. To discuss, therefore, evidence which throughout shows a reckless carelessness of which no man of ordinary discretion ought to have been guilty, would be to no purpose; hence, we may regard the case as fully disposed of when we have made a brief statement of the law which ought to have governed the court below. It was a mistake to hold that because the child was a trespasser it could therefore be ejected in a manner which endangered its life or limbs. In the case of the Pennsylvania Company v. Toomey, we held, per Mr. Justice Mercur, that such a disposition of a trespassing adult could not be allowed, and that ordinary care must be used to avoid injury even to a trespasser is fully established by the cases of the Pennsylvania Railroad Co. v. Lewis, 29 P. F. S., 33, the Hydraulic Works Co. v. Orr, 2 Norris, 332, and the Philadelphia & Reading Railroad Co. v. Hummell, 8 Wr., 375. Moreover, we have two cases which, in point, rule the contention in hand; they are
The judgment is reversed and a new venire ordered.