Goddard v. Boston & Maine Railroad
Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court
Tort by a passenger to recover for injuries from a fall caused by stepping on a banana skin on an artificial stone platform at the North Union Station in Boston. Writ dated April 27, 1900. At the trial in the Superior Court, before Aiken, J., there was no evidence showing how long the banana skin had lain where the plaintiff stepped on it or how it got there.
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Tort by a passenger to recover for injuries from a fall caused by stepping on a banana skin on an artificial stone platform at the North Union Station in Boston. Writ dated April 27, 1900. At the trial in the Superior Court, before Aiken, J., there was no evidence showing how long the banana skin had lain where the plaintiff stepped on it or how it got there. The plaintiff testified that there were employees of the defendant near the spot when he fell, that he had just got off a smoking car at the rear of a train in which he had come from Lynn, that other passengers from the same train were…
1Opinion of the CourtHolmes, C. J.
The banana skin upon which the plaintiff stepped and which caused him to slip may have been dropped within a minute by one of the persons who was leaving the train. It is unnecessary to go further to decide the case.
Exceptions overruled.
2Cited by54 opinions
- Oliveri v. Massachusetts Bay Transportation AuthorityMassachusetts Supreme Judicial Court · 1973
- Anjou v. Boston Elevated Railway Co.Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court · 1911
- Davis v. South Side Elevated RailroadIllinois Supreme Court · 1920
- SH Kress & Company v. ThompsonSupreme Court of Alabama · 1957
- Central of Georgia Railway Co. v. KeatingSupreme Court of Georgia · 1933
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