228 Pa. 384 | Pa. | 1910
Opinion by
The main contention of the appellant is that the negligence of the passenger after leaving its train is a bar to recovery for the injuries she sustained. A mere recital of the facts testified to by her and other witnesses will be a sufficient vindication of the correctness of the judgment of the court below that it was for the jury to determine whether her own negligence had been a contributing cause of her injuries.
Cora A. Reimard and her two children, aged six and eight years respectively, boarded a train of the defendant between six and seven o’clock on the evening of November 23, 1907, at Main street, in the town of Bloomsburg. That street, at its intersection with the railroad, was a
Under the foregoing state of facts, fully supported by the testimony, it would have been a strange jury that would have failed to find the defendant guilty of negligence, and the natural finding was that the woman, placed in a position of difficulty and great embarrassment by the act of the defendant, was not guilty of contributory negligence, for the rule is that, , having been placed in such a situation by the act of the defendant, she was not bound to use the very best judgment and was in no fault if she acted in good faith and with reasonable prudence: Pennsylvania Railroad Company v. Werner, 89 Pa. 59; Malone v. Pittsburg & Lake Erie Railroad Company, 152 Pa. 390; Ham v. Delaware & Hudson Canal Company, 155 Pa. 548.
A second Contention of the appellant is that, under the .undisputed facts in the case, the court should have charged the jury that the negligence 'of the defendant, of which the plaintiffs complain,- was not the proximate cause of the injuries sustained. The undoubted rule as to proximate cause is that the injury must be the natural and probable consequence of the negligence charged — such a consequence as, under the surrounding circumstances , of the case, might and ought to have been foreseen by the wrongdoer as likely to follow from his act: Township of West Mahanoy v. Watson, 112 Pa. 574. The. circumstances surrounding Mrs. Reimard when she was practically put off the train are presumed by the law to have been known to the defendant company, and, if so, it cannot be heard to say, as a matter of law, that it ought not to have reasonably anticipated that she would do just what she did. On the contrary, every juror in the case might have found and did find that whát she did was what he would have done under the circumstances, .and, therefore, the consequences to her in doing what she did as the result of the defendant’s negligence are chargeable to it as the direct cause of them.