Streetcar Accident Leaves Injured Passenger Without Recourse
A teenage girl’s suit against the Grant Street Electric Railway is dismissed when a judge rules the company has no legal duty to provide safe passage to the sidewalk.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
The damage suit of Etta Forcier, a 15-year-old girl, against the Grant Street Electric Railway Company on account of personal injuries, was unsuccessful and did not even go to the jury, Judge Osborn granting the defendant’s motion for a non-suit shortly after the trial commenced. The girl was a passenger on a Grant Street car on the evening of last St. Patrick’s Day and got off on the Grant Street bridge near her home. The car had not stopped on a platform, and to get to the sidewalk she walked around the car; in crossing the track behind it, she fell through, breaking her leg and sustaining other injuries. She sued for $5,000 damages. James Hamilton Lewis, the attorney for the corporation, moved for a non-suit on the ground that there was no law, either common or statute, compelling the railway company to plank between the rails. The opposing attorney held that the girl was yet a passenger and that the corporation was responsible for her safety until she had been safely landed from the car upon the sidewalk. The motion was granted.
“There was no law, either common or statute, compelling the railway company to plank between the rails.”
This case highlights the brutal early-day corporate immunity toward public transit riders. Today, Seattle’s transit agencies face stringent liability standards, but the physical dangers of rail infrastructure—like the gap between platforms and streets—remain a persistent point of civic and legal friction.
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