136 Iowa 13 | Iowa | 1907
Plaintiff, carrying an infant and a small satchel, and accompanied by another small child, attempted to dismount from defendant’s car, on which she had been carried as a passenger to her destination at a country highway crossing, designated on her passage receipt as “ Dailey’s,” and while doing so she fell and was injured. At this crossing, though it was designated on the ticket as a station, there was, as plaintiff well knew, no station, nor station platform; but in the highway the approaches to the rails on either side had been planked by the company, and the highway had been graded up to the planks; and it was usual to stop cars so that passengers could dismount by stepping from the car steps to the approach to the crossing. The negligence of defendant as alleged consisted in not furnishing plaintiff a safe place to alight; in stopping the car several feet east of this planking and approach in the highway, so that plaintiff was required to step down a greater distance, on account of the surface of the highway being lower at this point than the end of the ties, and inviting plaintiff to alight at this point, which was an unsuitable place for alighting; and in not notifying plaintiff of the danger or rendering her assistance in alighting.
Now, it may be conceded that defendant was not bound to maintain a passenger platform at every highway crossing where it stopped its cars to enable passengers to alight at their request, and that it would be improper to instruct the jury broadly, in every case, that there was a - duty on the part of defendant to furnish a safe place to alight wherever a car might be stopped, for such# direction might be taken to authorize recovery for injury received in stepping from the car step to the highway, no matter how carefiilly the place of stopping had been selected, on the theory that it was unsafe to step down even seventeen inches, the distance from the lowest step to the level of the top of the rail. The instruction referred to, which is too long to be set out in full, is not entirely clear as to whether the negligence therein referred to was in not furnishing a safe place in general for passengers to alight, or in not selecting a suitable place in the highway for that purpose. But, assuming that the jury could construe it as requiring defendant to furnish a safe
With reference to the duty of defendant to furnish plaintiff a safe place to alight at “ Dailey’s,” which was a place to which defendant specifically contracted to carry passengers, it was not error, therefore, to instruct that it involved the obligation to furnish them a safe place to alight. It does not follow that this duty involved the furnishing of a special platform in view of the nature of the transportation which defendant undertook to furnish, but it was for the jury to say whether, in view of the nature of the transportation, the place provided was a safe place. It may well be, as argued, that, at highway crossings not designated by the defendant as regular stopping places, it would not be negligent if it used due care in selecting as safe a place as practicable for a passenger to alight, although it did not provide any special conveniences or appliances for the use of passengers. Cincinnati W. & M. R. Co. v. Peters, 80 Ind. 168; Alabama & V. R. Co. v. Stacey, 68 Miss. 463 (9 South. 345). There was no error in the instruction as given under the record in this case.
We have noticed as fully as reasonable space will allow all tbe alleged errors set out in appellant’s argument.
Finding no error wbicb would justify a reversal, tbe judgment is affirmed.