138 Mo. App. 215 | Mo. Ct. App. | 1909
— Action for damages for personal injuries alleged to have been caused by the negligence of defendant. Verdict and judgment- were for plaintiff in the sum of |500, and the cause is here on the appeal of defendant. The injury occurred after dark in the evening of November 28, 1906, on the Twelfth street line of defendant’s railway system in Kansas City. Plaintiff, who was a heavy woman, was a passenger on an eastbound car. (The course of Twelfth street is east and west.) Owing to the croAvded condition of the car, she was compelled to stand in the aisle. She desired- to alight at Flora avenue and rang the bell as a signal to stop at that place. She testified that the car ran beyond the regular stopping place about one hundred feet before stopping, bnt that it did come to a full stop for passengers to alight and that she made her way to the rear vestibule, proceeded down the steps and was in the act of stepping from the last step to the street when the car started forward stiddenly and violently and threw her to the pavement, inflicting the injuries of which she complains, One other Avitness, a colored man who Atas walking on the sidewalk, stated that he saw the car stop
“Q. Mrs. Scroggins, state to the jury how you were hurt? A. Well, I was hurt from the fall. I struck my shoulder against the ground and slided quite a distance from the force of the fall, and struck my hip.”
On cross-examination:
“Q. How did it start? A. It made a sudden jerk— it moved right off at once.
“Q. What became of you? A. I fell onmy back in the street.
“Q. Pell on your back — now which direction did your head fall? A. My head fell towards the east.
“Q. That is to say, now, this being the platform of the car (showing) and this the step, and this the pavement — which way were you facing when you got off? A. I don’t know which way I was facing. I fell on my left shoulder on this side (showing). I must have been turned around that way when I got up, like (showing). That way, I guess. Most people do.
“Q. Especially women? A. I don’t know about that.
“Q. Isn’t it a fact that most women do get off cars •backwards? A. I never did notice any woman but myself.
“Q. At any rate you fell on your back and fell to the east, didn’t you? A. I fell on my left shoulder.
*219 “Q. And back? A. Yes, sir.
“Q. And fell to the east? A. Yes, sir.
“Q. That is the way tbe car was going? A. Yes, sir.
“Q. You didn’t have hold of anything when the car started up? A. No, I had turned loose my hold.
“Q. So that the movement of the car is what threw your head to the east? A. I don’t know what threw me, but I know that is the position I fell in.
“Q. You know about how far you fell? A. I don’t know. I fell quite a little distance. At least I lighted on the asphalt.
“Q. Kind of skidded on your shoulder? A. Yes, sir.
“Q. This car was going east and you fell east and skidded upon the pavement? A. It was on my back— going in that direction — the same direction the car went —kind of cat-e-cornered to the sidewalk. . . .
“Q. And before you stepped down from the lower step you had let loose? A. Yes, sir.”
In support of its contention that the court should have sustained its demurrer to the evidence, defendant argues that the statement of plaintiff that she was thrown by the sudden forward movement of a stationary car, from which she was in the act of stepping to the street, is so at war with the conceded physical facts of, the occurrence that it should be rejected as too insubstantial to raise an issue of fact for the jury. There is no controversy over the fact that plaintiff in falling pitched headlong in the direction in which the car was going and struck on her left shoulder on the pavement with an impetus so great that she slid head first along the pavement a distance of several feet. Defendant asserts that she could not thus have fallen had the fall been caused by the sudden starting of the car, and that it must have been caused by her attempt to alight while the car was in motion. In other words, that the version of the injury given by- defendant’s witnesses is so indisputably supported by the plain physical facts and laws of the situation that we should accept it as a thing con
With these principles and rules in mind, we find ourselves unable to give sanction to the action of the learned trial judge in overruling* the demurrer to the evidence. We are convinced of the utter unreasonable
“The direction of her fall doubtless was influenced by three opposing forces: The eastward motion she derived from the car, her southward motion in attempting to step from it, and the resistance offered by her attachment to the handhold which certainly could have greatly influenced the direction and nature of the fall. As we observed in Lang v. Railway, 115 Mo. App. 489, ‘So frequently do unlooked-fór results attend the meeting of interacting forces that courts, in such cases, should not indulge in arbitrary deductions from physical law and fact except when they appear to be so clear and irrefutable that no room is left for the entertainment, by reasonable minds, of any other.’ Under the conditions before us, we cannot say, as a matter of law, that plaintiff would have fallen in any given direction in either state of facts described.”
At this term we applied the same doctrine in Burnett v. Railway, — Mo. App. —. But in the present case, plaintiff had released her hold and, without other support than her footing, was stepping to the street. How could the sudden starting of the car, when she was in that position, have the effect of throwing her head first in the direction in which the car was going? The natural result of such start would have been toi jerk her feet towards the east and to pitch her body in the opposite direction. That would have been the effect pro
The judgment is reversed.