298 F. 921 | 8th Cir. | 1924
From a judgment entered on a verdict for damages on account of personal injuries, the defendant below sues this writ of error. The basis of the action is negligence of the carrier in failing to furnish a passenger a safe place for boarding a railway passenger train. The errors urged here are: (1) Failure to direct a verdict on the ground of insufficiency of evidence of negligence on the part of the carrier. (2) Failure to direct a verdict on the ground of contributory negligence of the plaintiff. (3) Excessive damages.
The first and second points urged involve an examination of the evidence and may be treated together. As the case was submitted both as to negligence of the defendant and of the plaintiff, and as the jury found that the defendant was negligent and the plaintiff was not, the inquiry of,this court on the above two points urged here is confined to a determination of whether there was substantial evidence to support this view of the jury.
The facts, from the standpoint of the .testimony introduced by plaintiff, were as follows: For some time she had been in the habit of boarding defendant’s northbound train at the flag station of Vareo, Minn. At this point, there were no station house, railway buildings or platforms of any kind nor any place prepared for passengers to use or occupy while waiting for or in boarding trains. It was merely a place where the main line was crossed by a public highway. On the west side of the main track, and a short distance south of the highway, a switch track branched off from the main line. To the south of the highway and on the west side of the main line, the ground was rough, with loose cinders, washed places and a ditch four or five feet deep. This train customarily stopped with the platform entrance, between the smoker and the ladies’ coach, at the highway or so near that this platform could be boarded from the highway. On the day of the accident, March 14, 1919, about 4:30 o’clock in the afternoon, plaintiff, with several other passengers, was waiting at the highway on the west side of the track to board the train. When the train stopped, the platform, which had to be boarded by these passengers, was two or three car lengths south of the
The judgment should be and is affirmed.