Streetcar Tragedy Lands Record Damages
After years of litigation, a laborer injured in a Seattle streetcar barn wins an unprecedented $20,000 judgment against the city's electric company.
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.
John Kroeger was this morning awarded a verdict of $20,000 damages against the Seattle Electric company by a jury in Judge Albertson's division of the superior court. This verdict is believed to be the largest ever rendered against the company for personal injuries that did not result in death. Though only ten members of a jury are required to agree in a civil suit, the verdict in this case was unanimous. The accident occurred on the morning of April 18, 1902, in the barns of the company at Fifth Avenue and Pine Street. At the trial, the plaintiff and his witnesses testified that as he was entering the car while it stood in the barn, it was started without warning and he was squeezed between the car and the barn door. His shoulder was fractured and his back and sides crushed in a manner that would prevent his ever earning his living by manual labor. Up to the time of the accident, he had been a common laborer. The defense was made on the ground that Kroeger had no right to board the car while it was in the barn. The testimony of the plaintiff's witness, however, evidently convinced the jury that on this line the practice had become a custom in which the company had acquiesced.
“His shoulder was fractured and his back and sides crushed in a manner that would prevent his ever earning his living by manual labor.”
This case highlights the immense power streetcar companies wielded over urban transit and labor at the turn of the century. The tension between corporate liability and the 'customary' risks workers took in dangerous transit facilities remains a recurring theme in modern workplace safety battles.
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