Cleveland Ry. Co. v. Hunt

PER CURIAM. Ellen Hunt brought an action in the Cuya-hoga Common Pleas against the Cleveland Railway Company to recover for personal injuries. At the trial in her testimony, she said the car was crowded and started with a violent jerk throwing her and other passengers to the floor. Upon cross-examination she admitted that she had said that an intoricated man kicked her shins, and fell over her with, the crowd. At the end of Hunt’s testimony, the Company moved for a directed verdict upon the ground that the testimony did not show any negligence upon the part of the Company. The trial court granted the motion, the Court of Appeals reversed it, and the case is brought here by the Company. The Supreme Court held: 1. The sole question presented here is whether there was any evidence, or any reasonable inference which the jury might draw from such evidence, tending to prove negligence upon the part of the Company; and it is urged by the company that the characterization by Hunt of the movement of the car as a “sudden jerk’’ is not proof of negligence and that, since Hunt did not testify that such jerk was unusual and unnecessary, therefore it did not tend to prove any negligence on the part of the defendant. 2. However, it must be remembered that the plaintiff did testify as to the result of such jerk upon the passengers and upon her as one of them. The proof was more than a characterization of the jerk as sudden, and was descriptive of the movement of the car. 3. It is contended by the Company that it was necessary for plaintiff to prove that the sudden jerk was unnecessary and unusual, to constitute negligence on the part of the defendant. 4. Perhaps more pains might have been taken to prove that it is mechanically possible and practicable to start an electric street car without such a jerk; but it is a matter of common knowledge that common carrier electric street cars are not usually started in such a way as to throw their passengers all about the car, and that such cars can be started smoothly and gradually and without a violent jerk. 5. Failure to prove in this case a matter of such common knowledge did not constitute such failure of proof as to justify a direction of the verdict. Judgment affirmed. (Marshall, CJ., Day, Allen, Kinkade, Robinson, Jones & Matthias, JJ., concur.) Note — OS. Pend, opinion wilfbe found 4 Abs. 667.