Dawson v. Maryland Electric Railway

³⁷⁴ Thomas, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. This is a suit to recover for injuries sustained by the appellant while a passenger on one of the ears of the appellee, and which is alleged to have been caused by its negligence. The only exception in the record is to the riding of the Court below in granting a prayer, at the conclusion of the plaintiff’s testimony, taking the case from the jury. The facts of the case, briefly stated, are as follows: The appellant, in the summer of 1911, purchased a round trip ticket from the appellee which entitled him to ride on its cars from Annapolis to Baltimore City, and, returning, from Baltimore to Annapolis.

In returning to Annapolis the appellant entered the car at the rear end. The car contained a passenger compartment and a baggage compartment, and the appellant, after entering the car, walked through the passenger compartment and not finding a vacant seat he returned to the baggage compartment. There were no seats and no provisions made for the accommodation of passengers in the baggage compartment, and the appellant took a position in the middle of the car, near and immediately in front of the door leading into the passenger compartment. He says he was not holding on to anything, but was standing in front of the door and looking into the passenger compartment; that passengers were getting off and on the car at the stations, but that he did not see any vacant seat; that he remained in that position for about a half hour after the car left Baltimore, and that while he was standing there the car gave a sudden jerk, he threw up his hand and grabbed the door jamb to stop from falling, and that the door, which had been open, closed on his hand and mashed his fingers.

The appellant says further that after he walked through the passenger compartment, when he first entered the car, and found that there were no vacant seats he did not again go into the passenger compartment, but that he did not see a vacant seat in there, and. ³⁷⁵ that he saw a man try to fasten the door hack, and that-.he had to push it several times before it would' catch. . : .. It is apparent from this brief statement of facts, which are all of the facts in the case having any hearing upoü the question of the appellee’s liability for the injury sustained, that the accident was directly due to the fact that the appellant voluntarily took the position stated in the baggage compartment of the car instead of remaining in the passenger compartment. The fact that he was permitted to do so would not render the appellee liable, where other provision was made for his safety and comfort. There is no evidence to show that there was not room for him to stand in the passenger compartment of the car, and if he elected to take the position he did in the baggage compartment, he • did so at his own risk.

In the case of Yorktown Turnpike Road v. Cason, 72 Md. 377 , the Court, after stating, “if they {passengers) voluntarily take exposed positions with no occasion therefor, nor inducement thereto, caused by the managers of the road, except a bare license by non interference, or express permission of the conductor, they take the special risks of that position upon themselves,” said of the plaintiff: “Had he been inside the car, where he ought to have been, the injury would not have been sustained, his own. voluntary choice placed him in an exposed position, and that position rendered the injury possible. It was a position not provided for him to occupy, and even a careless observer must know that it was the most dangerous one to take. He thought proper to make an experiment under circumstances of peril open and known to him, which he could have reasonábly avoided, and it is no injustice that he is required to bear the consequences of his own act.” The same principle was recognized in the later cases of State use of Miller v. W. Md. R. Co., 105 Md. 33 , and United Rys. Co. v. Riley, 109 Md. 327 .

The fact that the car gave a sudden jerk is no evidence of negligence on the part of the appellee. It does not appear ³⁷⁶