servants of the company. These facts disclosed evidence for the jury of negligence on the part of the company. § 2695. Cases of Defective Platforms where the Carrier was Exonerated. On the other hand, where the action against a railway company proceeded upon the ground of its negligence in leaving its station platform in an unsafe condition, it was held that negligence could not be predicated upon the act of the company in leaving a space of two and a half inches between its station platform and the steps of a car standing alongside;97 nor upon the mere existence of an opening between a car upon the Brooklyn Bridge and the platform constructed for the use of passengers, where the passenger was injured by being pushed so as to fall into the opening, it appearing that, since the construction of the bridge, not one of the large number of persons passing over it had been injured by reason thereof;98 nor upon the fact that a station platform is constructed so near the track that a portion of the engine projects over it, where the platform is wide enough to afford plenty of room to stand in safety;"9 nor upon the failure of the carrier, at a seaside summer resort used generally for pleasure excursions, to keep its platforms, cars and trains fenced in, or enclosed, or to keep a servant by them to warn people not to get on or by them, at a time when the trains are not running;1 nor upon the fact of allowing some milk cans to stand upon its platform at a flag station in a sparsely-settled district where it kept no agent, over which obstructions a female passenger stumbled in attempting to board a train, and was injured;101 nor upon the fact that a runaway horse not in the use of the railway company, nor in its care, nor frightened by any act done by it, gets upon the station platform of the company through a space not more than four feet wide, between a locomotive and a telegraph pole, and injures a passenger;102 nor because a person standing on a platform waiting for a train after having purchased his ticket, is struck and injured by the body of another person who is killed by a passing train, the court being of opinion that the proximate cause of the injury was not the negligence of the railway company, but was that of the deceased person, and that the plaintiff had no higher right of action against the .100 Hodges v. New Hanover Transit Co., 107 N. C. 576. 98 Fox v. New York, 70 Hun (N. Y.) 181; s. c. 53 N. Y. St. Rep. 902; 24 N. Y. Supp. 43. "Chicago &c. R. Co. v. Mahara, 47 Ill. App. 208. This is a grossly untenable decision. Such a platform is a mere death trap. 100 Hodges v. New Hanover Transit Co., 107 N. C. 576; s. c. 12 S. E. Rep. 597. 101 Falls v. San Francisco &c. R. Co., 97 Cal. 114; s. c. 31 Pac. Rep. 901. 102 Brooks v. Old Colony R. Co.,. 168 Mass. 164; s. c. 46 N. E. Rep. 566. railway company than he would have had if he had been injured at any other place where he had a lawful right to be;103 nor upon the fact of an injury to a passenger who, while waiting for a train in the night, walks in the darkness on a platform at the rear of the station building, which is not intended for passengers, and falls into a pit and is injured,-the company having provided a safe and convenient platform in front of its station house, and where the exercise of ordinary care would have shown the danger of walking where the plaintiff did.104 2696. Care of Platform Maintained Jointly by Two Companies.Where a station platform is maintained jointly by two railway companies, for the purpose of enabling passengers to pass from the station of one of the companies to that of the other, and is negligently left in an unsafe condition, either or both companies will be liable to a passenger receiving injuries in consequence of such unsafe condition, on the principle of being joint tort-feasors. 105 § 2697. Right of Passenger to Assume that the Platform is Safe.— In the absence of knowledge to the contrary, or of some circumstance putting him upon inquiry, a passenger, or an intending passenger, obviously has the right to assume that the carrier has done his duty in this particular. For example, he has a right to assume that the platform of a railway passenger station, intended for the use of passengers in boarding and alighting from trains, is in a reasonably safe condition for that purpose.106 103 Wood v. Pennsylvania R. Co., 177 Pa. St. 306; s. c. 35 L. R. A. 199; 35 Atl. Rep. 699; cited and followed in Evansville &c. R. Co. v. Welch, 25 Ind. App. 308; s. c. 58 N. E. Rep. 88. 204 Gunderman v. Missouri &c. R. Co., 58 Mo. App. 370. Nor is a railroad company which has constructed and maintains a platform reasonably safe for the purposes for which it is used, liable for an injury received by one while walking over it, caused by his stubbing his toe, whether such person was using care and prudence as a reasonably prudent man or not: Dillingham v. Teeling (Tex. Civ. App.), 24 S. W. Rep. 1094 (no off. rep.). 105 Lucas v. Pennsylvania Co., 120 Ind. 205; S. c. 21 N. E. Rep. 968; Gulf &c. R. Co. v. Glenk, 9 Tex. Civ. App. 599; s. c. 30 S. W. Rep. 278. Compare Vol. II, §§ 1856, 1956. Where two railway companies had Therefore, it adjoining stations, which the passengers of each used indifferently, one of these companies was held responsible for an injury from the careless operation of a truck, laden with baggage, by a porter of the company owning the premises, to a person who was neither a passenger of theirs nor on the premises of the company on any business in which they were interested, but the passenger of another company. But this was on the principle of respondeat superior, as the act causing the injury was one of misfeasance done by a servant of the defendants in the course of his employment: Tebbutt v. Bristol &c. R. Co., L. R. 6 Q. B. 73; s. c. 40 L. J. (Q. B.) 78; 32 L. T. (N. S.) 772. 100 Dobiecki v. Sharp, 88 N. Y. 203; Weston v. New York &c. R. Co., 73 N. Y. 595. negligence, as matter of law, for a passenger going to reach his train, to attempt to pass over a station platform when there is ice and snow upon it. The duty of the railway carrier is not wholly performed by appointing servants whose duty it is to keep the platform safe, but it is bound to take reasonable care and to maintain a reasonable inspection, to the end that it shall be reasonably safe in point of fact.107 This obligation of a railway company to see that its platforms are reasonably safe, is not confined to passengers or to intending passengers; but it extends to all persons who may be lawfully there, as, for example, to persons who assemble there to meet their friends upon incoming trains; and if they are injured through the defective condition of the station platform, without fault on their own part, the company will be liable to them in damages. 108 On the same principle, a railway company becomes liable to a person who has come upon its platform to see a female relative safely on board its train, and who is killed by stumbling on an obstruction on the platform and rolling under the train, although in leaving the platform, he does not take the nearest practicable route to his home.109 Railway station platforms may be rendered defective not only through negligence in the manner in which they have been constructed, or negligence in the manner in which they are kept in repair, but through the fact of dangerous operations being carried on upon them by the servants of the railway company. Thus, a frequent source of injury to persons assembled upon railway station platforms arises from the fact of mail bags being thrown from moving trains. Such an act is so clearly negligence that the company will not be relieved from liability to a person injured by it, from the fact that mail bags have been thrown in the same manner without injuring any one for a number of months, where the particular injury is such as might be reasonably foreseen.110 Another source of injury to persons upon railway station platforms is the carelessness of baggage men in drawing or shoving heavy trucks loaded with baggage over the platform. This is the usual way of moving baggage to the proper place to load it upon a train, or of moving it from the place where it is unloaded, to the baggage room; but to draw or to drive a truck thus loaded through a crowd of persons standing upon the platform, is plainly negligence, and it may even amount to wantonness, where no warning is given to persons so standing about, to look out for 107 Weston v. New York &c. R. Co., rush, 11 Ind. App. 192; s. c. 37 N. E. supra. Rep. 954. 10s Illinois &c. R. Co. v. Wall, 53 Ill. App. 588. 100 New York &c. R. Co. v. Mush 110 Hughes v. Chicago &c. R. Co., 127 Mo. 447; s. c. 30 S. W. Rep. 127. 111 their safety. Under a rule stated in a preceding paragraph,115 railroad companies are not held to extraordinary care in the construction of their station platforms; but the law is generally satisfied when the company, with respect to its platforms and the approaches to its cars, exercises such reasonable care and diligence as is demanded of individuals upon whose premises others come by invitation or inducement for the transaction of business,113-a subject considered in a former volume.114 Under this rule of diligence, a railroad company may, without the imputation of negligence, continue to use a platform not obviously dangerous, which has been in daily use for years, and which has uniformly proved adequate and convenient.115 It is not necessary, in order to charge a railway company with responsibility for the condition of a station platform, that the platform should have been constructed or owned by the company; but if the trains of the company have been accustomed to stop at the platform for the reception and discharge of passengers, an implied contract that passengers may stop therefor will arise, and this will carry with it the duty of keeping the platform in a reasonably safe condition.1 With regard to the duty of maintaining a suitable station and platform at any particular place, it must be concluded that there is no such duty except in favor of passengers and intending passengers, and (at most) of persons who come to see them off or to meet them when they alight. This duty does not extend to one who takes passage on a construction train, to run over an unfinished railroad, who knows that there is no station at the end of the line.1 117 116 the testimony related, it was not proper to admit evidence of its condition some time after the injury: 113 Pennsylvania Co. v. Marion, 104 Pennsylvania Co. v. Marion, 104 Ind. Ind. 239; s. c. 2 West. Rep. 236. 114 Vol. I, § 968, et seq. 239; s. c. 2 West. Rep. 236. Where a complaint by a passenger for in 115 Illinois &c. R. Co. v. Hobbs, 58 juries sustained from falling from Ill. App. 130. 116 Louisville &c. R. Co. v. Johnston, 79 Ala. 436. 117 Chicago &c. R. Co. v. Frazer, 55 Kan. 582; s. c. 40 Pac. Rep. 923. For an example of a petition or complaint, in an action against a railroad company for an injury received by a passenger in stepping from its car upon the platform, from a large wooden splinter penetrating her foot, which was held a good pleading,-see Wilkes v. Western &c. R. Co., 109 Ga. 794; s. c. 35 S. E. Rep. 165. Without evidence that the platform was substantially in the same condition at the time of the injury as at the time to which a depot platform insufficiently lighted, alleged as a ground for recovery that defendant failed to station a guard on the platform to warn passengers of the danger of falling therefrom, testimony of the conductor that he did not station any one on the platform to notify passengers of the danger is relevant: Texas &c. R. Co. v. Taylor (Tex. Civ. App.), 58 S. W. Rep. 166. There is a holding to the effect that, under a petition or complaint stating that the defendant railroad company, by negligently permitting a hole to remain in its station platform, and by the negligence of its servants in extricating the plaintiff from the hole § 2698. Other Instances of Negligence with Respect to the Carrier's Premises.-The fact that the edges of the steps of a staircase at a station were tipped with brass, which had been worn smooth by use, and that the staircase had a wall on each side without any handrail, was held no evidence of negligence, although some metal might have been used for this purpose which would not wear quite so smooth; or, as Erle, C. J., said, a hand rail "might be occasionally found convenient,-as, by a man with a wooden leg, or a very infirm person."118 And so it was no evidence of negligence that a railroad company allowed a weighing machine to stand upon its platform, quite out of the course of travel, for the purpose of weighing baggage, over which the plaintiff was pressed and injured by the crush of a large crowd upon a holiday.119 A railway company was held not responsible for injury to an illiterate person who in the nighttime, in search of the water-closet, passed by the door having a light over it and the words "For gentlemen," and, opening a door having over it the sign "Lamp-room," but no light above it, fell down some steps which led downwards immediately from the threshold.120 The carrier is not liable for injuries occasioned by its buildings or structures being blown down by storms, where it has used that care and skill in their structure and maintenance which men of ordinary prudence and skill usually employ.121 after she had fallen into it, injured the plaintiff,-it is not error to confine an instruction, which states the ground of recovery, to the negligence of the defendant in permitting the hole to remain in the platform, excluding the negligence of its servants in injuring the plaintiff while trying to get her out of it: Robertson v. Wabash R. Co., 152 Mo. 382; s. c. 53 S. W. Rep. 1082. 118 Crafter v. Metropolitan R. Co., L. R. 1 C. P. 300; s. c. Thomp. Carr. Pass. 88; Crocheron v. North Shore &c. Ferry Co., 56 N. Y. 656; rev'g s. c. 1 Thomp. & C. (N. Y.) 446; Davis v. London &c. R. Co., 2 Fost. & Fin. 588. 119 Cornman v. Eastern Counties R. Co., 4 Hurl. & N. 781; s. c. Thomp. Carr. Pass. 76. 120 Toomley v. London &c. R. Co., 3 C. B. (N. S.) 146; s. c. Thomp. Carr. Pass. 72. 121 Pittsburgh &c. R. Co. v. Brigham, 29 Ohio St. 374; s. c. Thomp. Carr. Pass. 101. In another case, the plaintiff was bitten by a stray dog at a railway station, while waiting for a train. It was proved that early in the evening the dog snapped at and tore the dress of another woman on the platform; that an hour and a half afterwards he attacked a cat in the signal box, near the station, where he was kicked out by the porter, who saw no more of him. Ten minutes later the dog made his appearance on the platform, where he bit the plaintiff. It was held that there was no evidence to warrant a jury in finding that the company had been guilty of any negligence in keeping the station reasonably safe for passengers: Smith v. Great Northern R. Co., L. R. 2 C. P. 4. State of facts under which a railroad company was held not liable for injuries sustained by a passenger, who fell between the step of a car and its station platform, upon only a scintilla of evidence and the guess or supposition of a single witness, that there was too much space between the platform and the steps and that the place was insufficiently lighted: Rothschild v. Central R. Co., 163 Pa. St. 49; s. c. 29 Atl. Rep. 702. Circumstances under which a rail |