Robertson v. Old Colony Railroad
Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court
Tort, for personal injuries occasioned to the plaintiff, an employee of the proprietors of a circus, while riding in a car belonging to the proprietors, drawn by the defendant company over its road under a written agreement. Trial in the Superior Court, before Bishop, J., who directed a verdict for the defendant, and reported the case for the determination of this court.
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Tort, for personal injuries occasioned to the plaintiff, an employee of the proprietors of a circus, while riding in a car belonging to the proprietors, drawn by the defendant company over its road under a written agreement. Trial in the Superior Court, before Bishop, J., who directed a verdict for the defendant, and reported the case for the determination of this court. If the ruling was right, judgment was to be entered for the defendant; otherwise, the case was to stand for trial. The facts appear in the opinion.
1Opinion of the CourtLathrop, J.
Unless the defendant was under a common law or statutory obligation to carry the plaintiff in the manner he was carried at the time of the accident, it did not stand towards him in the relation of a common carrier, and the plaintiff cannot recover. The only right which the plaintiff had to be on the train was by virtue of a contract which the defendant had made with the proprietors of a circus, whose servant the plaintiff was. By the terms of this contract, the defendant agreed to haul certain cars belonging to the circus proprietors, according to a schedule of time fixed by the agreement, by…
2Cases cited1 opinion
- Coup v. Wabash, St. Louis & Pacific Railway Co.Michigan Supreme Court · 1885
3Cited by22 opinions
- Louisville, New Albany & Chicago Railway Co. v. KeeferIndiana Supreme Court · 1896
- Russell v. Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Chicago & St. Louis Railway Co.Indiana Supreme Court · 1901
- First National Stores Inc. v. H. P. Welch Co.Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court · 1944
- Doyle v. Fitchburg RailroadMassachusetts Supreme Judicial Court · 1896
- Chicago, M. & St. P. R. v. WallaceCourt of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit · 1895
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