122 Ga. 387 | Ga. | 1905
This was an action for damages, brought by Mrs. Erancis Tucker against the Central of Georgia Railway Company, she alleging she had received personal injuries while attempting to alight from a train at one of the company’s stations. The acts of negligence with which she charged the company were, (1) that the conductor, befoi’e giving her a reasonable opportunity to alight, gave a signal for the train to go ahead, and it was moving at the time she attempted to get off; (2) that in placing a stool on the ground for the purpose of enabling passengers to disembark, as it was the duty of the conductor to do, he negligently placed the stool partially under the steps of the car, so that when she stepped on the stool, it turned over and caused her to fall; (3) that he did not attempt to catch her to keep her from falling; (4) that the company was negligent in s not having prepared a proper place for passengers to alight at that Station, the distance from the car steps to the ground being such that they were required to take a long step from the car steps to the stool; and (5) that the conductor' was negligent in not assisting' her to alight in safety, as under the circumstances he should have done. The plaintiff alleged that she made all possible haste in endeavoring to leave the company’s train as soon as it stopped at the station; that she relied on the conductor to properly perform his duty in placing the stool opposite the car steps, and that she had neither time nor opportunity to observe that he had carelessly placed it partly under the steps of the car until she was in the act of alighting. The company filed an answer in which it made