176 Mass. 401 | Mass. | 1900
Each of the two plaintiffs has sued each of the two defendants to recover for an injury from being struck by a car on the track of the Old Colony Railroad Company, which was leased and used by the New York, New Haven, and Hartford Railroad Company. Adjacent to the tracks of the Old Colony Railroad Company, between them and South Street, at a distance of nearly four hundred feet from .the southerly end of the passenger station in Boston, was a building occupied by the defendant express company under an arrangement with the railroad company. Along the northerly end of the building, occu- ■ pying the whole space between the tracks on the east and South Street on the west, was a platform between four and five feet high, which ran northerly two hundred and eighty-five feet, covering nearly all of the triangular space, and about six and a half feet wide at the foot of the steps. Next easterly of this platform was track No. 1 of the railroad company, and easterly of that was a platform about a foot high, and easterly of that were tracks No. 2 and No. 3, and then another low platform. The offices of the express company were in the building at the-southerly end of the high platform. On the evening of October 6, 1897, at about a quarter before seven o’clock, the plaintiffs went together to these offices with a tricycle weighing nearly two hundred pounds, five feet and two inches in width between the hubs of the hind wheels, five feet in length, and having wheels three feet and four inches high. This tricycle they wished to send by express to Brockton. After they had delivered it and paid the expressage, they were informed that the express matter and the sheet for the express car, which was to go to Brockton that night, had gone over to the car, which stood on track No 3, and that-if they wished to have the tricycle go to Brockton that night they would be obliged to take it over