Hugh N. Orr v. Southern Pacific Company, a Corporation

Orr brought action against the Southern Pacific Company, a common carrier, for personal injury claimed to have resulted from negligence in the operation of an interurban train between San Francisco and San Jose. It was tried by the court without a jury.

The Court found:

There was evidence to support all these findings. There is no dispute among the parties up to the matters stated in Paragraph 5. A passenger who saw Orr rolling alongside the track testified that there was no unusual movement or handling of the train immediately pri- or to this. A trainman who had seen the fall from the vestibule of some object, subsequently determined to be Orr, was definite that there was no unusual movement or handling of the train immediately before that time. There was no evidence to the contrary.

The record showed that on this particular commuters’ train, on account of frequent stops, the vestibule doors are left open until after the train passes the stop where Orr intended to get off. He had been riding this train for about eight months to and from this same station, but said he had not noticed the doors remaining open.

The finding that there was no negligence in either of these…