208 Mass. 446 | Mass. | 1911
The plaintiff’s story was that she was pushed off the car platform on to the station floor as she was alighting in Boston. She testified that after reaching the platform of the car she waited until the skirts of a woman in front of her “ were off the top stairs so that I could step down,” and then as she put one foot down from the car platform to the top step she was pushed off the car. The plaintiff was accompanied by her daughter and her son, and there was evidence that there were some five persons between the mother and the daughter, ten or a dozen between the daughter and the son, and two persons behind the son. There also was evidence that the train stopped before getting fairly into the station and that it was dark at the part of the platform here in question. Further there was evidence that the train in question was crowded when it reached Wyoming where the plaintiff got on, and that that train usually was crowded. Lastly there was evidence that there was a great deal of pushing and jostling among those behind the plaintiff.
The presiding judge
The plaintiff was not entitled to go to the jury on the evidence that the place was dark. In the first place, by her own story it was light enough for her to see the skirts of the woman in front of her, and in the second place the cause of the accident was not the darkness of the station but the fact that another passenger jostled or pushed the plaintiff off the car platform. It was not pretended that he jostled or pushed the plaintiff off because it was dark.
The judge should have directed the jury to find a verdict for the defendant as matter of law. The entry therefore should be judgment for the defendant under St. 1909, c. 236.
So ordered.
Hitchcock, J.