The opinion of the court was delivered by
The action in this case was for damages to the plaintiffs below because of the personal injuries inflicted upon the wife.
The defendant operates an electric street car route in the county of Bergen for the carriage of passengers. It appears from the testimony on the part of the plaintiffs that Mrs. Scott, on April I3th, 1897, took a car of the defendant, at Undercliff Ferry, to go to a crossing at Coytesville, there to change cars for her home at Undercliff. She says she paid her fare to the conductor, and told him to let her off at the
This is the substance of the evidence in behalf of the plaintiff, except as to injuries and damages suffered.
A motion to nonsuit was made on the single ground of the contributory negligence of Mrs. Scott. This was refused and an exception taken to the refusal and sealed.
The only reason for this motion would appear to be that the plaintiff, Mrs. Scott, failed 'to take hold of the hand-rail on the platform of the car. But even if this fact appeared with entire clearness, it was a fact for-the jury only, as bearing upon the question of whether a failure to take hold of the hand-rail was the exercise of ordinary care for her own
If the evidence of the plaintiff was believed by the jury, then such a case has been made out as required its submission to the jury to determine' whether the defendant was guilty of negligence. It is not perceived under the evidence wherein Mrs. Scott had been guilty of any act of contributory negligence and it certainly was a question at least for the jury.
It was decided in the case of the Consolidated Traction Co. v. Thalheimer, 30 Vroom 474, that the occurrence of a sudden lurch or jerk of a street car of sufficient violence to throw a passenger off the platform of a ear, who was then preparing to alight or awaiting the stoppage of the car to alight, justified an inference of some breach of duty and falls within the maxim res ipsa loquitur, and that it was held .that under the circumstances it was for the jury to say whether the defendant was guilty of negligence and the plaintiff guilty of contributory negligence.
The movement of Mrs. Scott, as the car approached this crossing, as the car was slowing down, to the platform and her standing there was not the want of ordinary care. Consolidated Traction Co. v. Thalheimer, supra. In law, under certain circuinstances, she had the right to ride there, and whilst so riding there, was a passenger and entitled to the exercise of the care required of a carrier to protect her from injury. It was not negligence, in law, on her part to ride
On the part of the defendant there was the evidence of several witnesses showing, or tending to show, that Mrs. Scott arose from her seat in the car, walked directly to the platform, and without waiting at all for the car to stop walked off the platform and fell to the street.
If this evidence had been taken by the jury as true, the verdict should have been for the defendant, for it not only exhibited no want of care of the servants of the defendant in operating the car, but it did reveal clear contributory negligence on the part of the plaintiff causing the injury.
But this evidence raised disputed questions of fact which were submitted to the jury. A state of the case was not presented which required, or permitted, a direction' of a verdict for the defendant.
An exception was taken to the charge to the jury, that the defendant company was bound to ■ exercise a high degree of care towards its passengers in order to protect them from injury.
The language of the learned trial justice upon this point was as follows: “ The crucial question in the case is, what caused her to leave the ear so as to fall? and whether the cause, whatever it was, was one attributive to some fault on the part of the employes of the railroad company. The railroad company was a common carrier of passengers, and as such it and its employes owe to the passengers a high degree of care for the safety of the passengers, and they are bound to exercise a high degree of care to get them safely to the journey’s end.”
The rule as stated has been always laid down by our courts. Consolidated Traction Co. v. Thalheimer, 30 Vroom 474; City Railway Co. v. Lee, 21 Id. 438; Whalen v. Consolidated Traction Co., 32 Id. 606, 611.
‘ After the trial justice had stated the law to the jury as to the care required of the carrier for the safety of its passengers, and also the care required of the passengers for their own
This excerpt from the charge distinctly leaves the cause of the accident and the questions of negligence and contributory negligence to the jury, and correctly states that the burden rests upon the plaintiffs to establish the negligence of the defendant. Neither in the argument nor briefs of counsel is it pointed out in what respect this portion of the charge was erroneous or misled the jury. Traction Co. v. Gardner, 31 Vroom 57.
No error has been discovered in the submission of this case to the jury, and the judgment of the Supreme Court is affirmed, with costs.