Przyborowski v. Baltimore Transit Co.

Henderson, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. Mrs. Przyborowski was injured while a passenger on a trackless trolley operated by the appellee. She brought an action for damages, and her husband ⁶⁵ brought a companion suit to recover for loss of services and expenses. Both cases were heard before the court and a jury in the Superior Court of Baltimore City.

At the conclusion of the plaintiff’s case the court granted prayers for directed verdicts in favor of the defendant. The cases come here on appeal from judgments entered upon those verdicts. On June 7, 1946, Mrs. Przyborowski, a married woman 49 years of age, in apparent good health and weighing some 154 pounds, rode to the Broadway Market on a trackless trolley. She paid her fare and received a “return slip”, which entitled her to a reduced fare for a return trip.

After completing her purchase, three pounds of fish, she boarded a trackless trolley at Eastern Avenue and Ann Street. She put her fare in the fare-box and handed the “return slip” to the operator. However, the slip fluttered to the floor, and she stooped over to pick it up. She testified that when the slip fell the operator gave her “a very nasty look” and “mumbled something”; she said she was sorry; the trolley “started with a very fast jerk”, just as “I had the slip in my hand”, and “threw me on the right side”.

Just how this could cause her to fall on her right side is not made clear. There was testimony that she had received a permanent injury to her right side in a previous accident, for which she recovered damages. She further testified: “I stooped down on both my knees”; the operator “had seen me stooping down to pick up the slip” before he started. This was the only testimony as to how the accident occurred.

There was no testimony that any other passenger was unbalanced by the starting motion. A photograph was introduced showing the operator’s seat on the left front of the trolley, the farebox to his right, opposite the folding entrance doors, a horizontal metal bar between the farebox and the door, and two upright metal bars on each side in front of the front longitudinal seats. One of these bars is located immediately behind and to the right of the operator’s seat. Thus the ap ⁶⁶ pellant had within reach ample means to support herself.

There was no evidence that she had hold of anything when the car started. In the case of Brocato v. United Rys. & Electric Co., 129 Md. 572 , 99 A. 792 , there was testimony that the plaintiff sustained a fall, while stepping from the back platform into the car, due to a “jerk of the car” in starting. The car “jerked hard” in starting and threw her down. This court said: “If there was any negligence on the part of the company it must be found in the starting of the car before the plaintiff was in a place of safety, or in the defendant’s negligent operation of the car resulting in the ‘jerk’ complained