The Cable Car That Dodged a Runaway Electric—and the Lawsuit That Followed

E. K. Marvin, who sprained his ankle in the street car collision at Third and Madison streets on June 11, 1893, yesterday got $1,000 damages from the Rainier Power & Railway Company in Judge Osborn's court. It was the second trial of the case, Judge Osborn's jury having disagreed on it last fall. Marvin claimed loss of time and permanent incapacity to earn a living as resulting from it, and was suing for $2,500. A strange feature of the case is that Marvin's suit is not against the company whose passenger he was at the time.

Marvin was a passenger on a Madison street cable car coming down town. The gripman stopped the car and dummy across the track of the Third street electric car, just in front of Cordray's theater, as usual, the middle of the street being the only level bit of ground where the Madison car can be held. While some passengers were being let off, the gripman noticed a Third street car coming at full speed down the slight grade from Spring street. As his car had the right-of-way, however, he was not concerned and supposed that the car would be brought to a standstill before there was any danger. But when the car came whizzing along at full speed until not fifty feet away, he knew that it was beyond control. He lost no time in doing what could be done, and with a jerk of the long lever which works the grip he picked up the cable, which runs six or eight miles an hour, and in a fraction of a second his car was dragged at full speed out of the way of the wild car. Yet, so close was the electric car that it struck the rear platform of the cable trailer coach and knocked the rear trucks off the track. Had it not been for the gripman's coolness, several lives would have been lost. As it was, many of the passengers on the cable car were frightened almost out of their wits.

It was after the danger was practically over that the accident to Marvin occurred. When the cable car started down the steep hill between Second and Third streets with its rear trucks off the track, many of the passengers were frightened and jumped off. Marvin also went off. He says that he was thrown off, but no one saw a man thrown off, although a large number of witnesses saw several men jump off and tumble around among the paving stones by the side of the track. Whether he was thrown or jumped off was a question for the jury. At any rate he sprained his ankle and was laid up a considerable time. The defense made a great deal of the fact that Marvin's testimony as to the time he was thrown off differed materially yesterday from that at the former trial, he having then testified that he was thrown off by the shock of the collision. Marvin's attorneys held that it made no difference even if their client did jump off, for he was put in such terror that he was not bound to discretion.

Besides trying to prove that Marvin was also negligent, the Rainier Power & Railway Company, which owns the Third street line, set up that its track was wet by a street sprinkler and the wheels slipped after the brakes were set, and that the Madison street people were really to blame. Judge Humes, following Judge Osborn's lead in the former trial, instructed the jury that if it found Madison street company equally to blame for the collision it would bring in a verdict for the defendant. The jury was out a little more than an hour.