Opinion by
Plaintiffs, who are husband and wife, sued the Pittsburgh Transportation Company and the Pittsburgh Railways Company, alleging that the joint and concurrent negligenсe of the two defendants resulted in serious injuries to the wife. The verdicts and judgments were in favor of each of the plaintiffs against both of the defendants, and each defendant prosecutes two appeals— a separate one from the judgment in favor оf each plaintiff. No objection is made to the amount of either judgment, or to the right of the plaintiffs to recover from one of the defendants. Plaintiffs allege both defendants are liable; but each of the latter asserts it is not liable and the other is. Admittedly, these differences of opinion raise the only points we need decide, and in doing so must consider the evidence in the light most favorable to plaintiffs. Thus viewed, the essential facts are as follows:
The Transportation Company is a common carrier for hire, and on a bright, clear day, the injured plaintiff became a paying passenger in one of its taxicabs, to be taken to 434 Fourth Avenue in the City оf Pittsburgh. That avenue is a busy one-way street, and upon it the Railway Company has a single line of tracks over which its trolley cars run. When the taxicab reached a point in front of No. 434, its driver so stopped his car that the right front wheel was at the curb and the left rear wheеl was within the space between the two rails of the trolley track. There was ample time and space to put the car рarallel with and close to the curb, as is usually done, in which event it would have been in a place of safety, and could not havе been struck by a passing railway car. While so situated, and before the wife had alighted from the taxicab, a trolley car of the Railway Company, ydlQge motorman coplcl have plainly seen, if he had been *58 even slightly observant, that the wheel' of the taxicab was between the rails of the track on which his trolley was running, and who had ample time to stop his trolley car, nevertheless ran it forwаrd without stopping, so that it collided with that wheel, thereby causing the injury resulting in this suit. Under these circumstances the defendants were concurrently negligent, and jointly and severally liable to plaintiffs.
It was practically conceded at bar that there was sufficient evidencе from which the jury could have properly concluded the Railway Company was negligent, and the foregoing facts show this was so. The Transportation Company contends, however, that, for the purpose of enabling its passenger to alight, it had a legal right to stop its taxicab so that it projected diagonally into the street, with a portion of it between the rails of the trolley track, and henсe it could not be held negligent at all; and, even if it could be, the negligence chargeable to it was not the proximate cause of the injury. As there was no necessity for so locating the taxicab, it may well be doubted whether the first part of this contention would be correct even as between it and the Railway Company, but we need not go into that question. The injured plaintiff was a passengеr for hire in the taxicab; and the Transportation Company owed to her the highest degree of care and diligence in carrying her to her destination and enabling her to alight safely: McBride v. McNally,
The question involved here is one of concurrent negligence and not of proximatе cause; hence the latter need not be considered. In O’Malley v. P. R. T. Co.,
On all four appeals the judgments of the court below are affirmed.