DocketNumber: Appeal, No. 147
Judges: Beaver, Orlady, Porter, Rice
Filed Date: 7/10/1902
Status: Precedential
Modified Date: 11/13/2024
Opinion by
The plaintiff was, shortly before noon on July 12, 1898, at the northwest corner of Thirteenth and Arch streets in the city of Philadelphia. He wished to take a west-bound car of the defendant company and hailed an approaching one, which was of the summer type having a running board along the side affording a means of entrance along the entire length of the side. The crossing of Arch street for pedestrians was composed of three parallel lines of flagstones. The defendant company ¿Maintained a circular manhole twenty-eight inches in diameter, for the purpose of affording access to its underground wires, which was outside of and eleven inches distant from the north rail of its west-bound track, and the eastern edge of which was six feet west from the middle one of tbe three rows of flagstone crossings. This manhole was usually covered by an iron plate level with the street, but at the time in question the employees of the defendant company had removed the cover and were engaged in work at the opening. There was a covered dearborn wagon standing close to the north curb of Arch street and just west of the crossing, so that the opening in the street could not be seen by a person standing upon the sidewalls at the corner, but there was an unoccupied space of five or six feet between the dearborn wagon and the north rail of the track. The plaintiff having hailed the car Avalked out to the track on the middle row of the flagstone crossing; the car gradually slackened its speed and the plaintiff knowing that it had not stopped caught hold of the hand rails and walked along the street sideways intending to get onto the car when it should come to a full stop; he walked in this way five or six steps when his course carried him into the manhole and he Avas injured. . The running board of the car projected some distance north of the rails and covered when passing the manhole five or six inches of the opening, leaving twenty-tAvo or twenty-
The plaintiff had not looked at that part of the street in which this open hole was an object that could not have escaped his observation. Being upon the middle flagstone he turned and walked westward along the cartway for at least six feet, with his eyes fixed upon the inside of the car and taking no care as to what obstacles or pitfalls his footsteps encountered. At noon upon a bright summer day a man in full possession of his faculties and threatened, by no peril, stepped into an open hole in the street twenty-eight inches in diameter, which if he had been looking where he was going he must inevitably have seen. The only explanation of such an accident is that he was paying no attention to where his footsteps led him, and that is just what this plaintiff admitted to be true in his testimony in this case. It is the duty of every pedestrian upon a public highway to use reasonable care for his own safety and to avoid an open and apparent danger. He who fails to meet this