Walker v. Georgia Railway & Electric Co.

If the plaintiff proved his case as laid, he disproved it on cross-examination, and showed that, without any emergency or necessity justifying the same, he voluntarily stepped from a rapidly moving car at night; and there was no error in granting a nonsuit.

Action for damages. Before Judge Calhoun. City court of Atlanta. April 28, 1904. Wilder sued for injuries sustained by him in stepping from a car of the defendant, on which he was a passenger. It was alleged that the conductor called the station at which he had requested to he put off, and that, believing, from the announcement, that it was safe to alight and that the car had stopped, he proceeded to step from it, when it was in motion, and received .certain physical injuries; that it was at night, and he supposed the noise and vibration of the car were caused by the air-brake under it, which made a sound and produced a vibration when the car was at rest, similar to that made by a car in motion. After testifying in chief to the facts stated in the petition, the plaintiff testified, that he saw the gate at Fort McPherson; that he did not know how fast the car was running when he stepped off, but it was running pretty fast. “ It hadn’t slowed up very much. It was running very nearly as fast as it had been all the way along there... It was running the way it had been coming down to the fort. It slowed up a little, but not much; not much from the way I fell. . . I saw the lights over there iuside the barracks.” A nonsuit, was granted and the plaintiff excepted.