Scottish Court of Session Decisions

In the ordinary case of an accident resulting from a supposed invitation to alight, the passenger is led to believe that the train has come to rest, and if it is started when he is in the act of alighting he is liable to be thrown down and injured by the relative movement of train and platform for which he is not prepared. But a prudent passenger is supposed to be able to take care of himself when within the carriage in which he is travelling, and if he is unable to do so I can see no other solution of the difficulty except that he may stay at home, because if a train is stopped whether in transit or at the arrival terminus it must sometimes be necessary that it should be started again, and then all the passengers are more or less exposed to be jostled or shaken by the start and the reaction of the carriages against the springs by which they are coupled together.

In these circumstances I have looked carefully into the pursuer's averment of fault to discover, if possible, what is the wrong of which he complains. But the only fault alleged is that the engine-driver was in fault in starting the train without any warning having been given after the train had come to a stop at the arrival platform. I do not think that the action of the engine-driver thus described was necessarily, or even probably, faulty. It is quite consistent with the pursuer's statement that the train had stopped short of the place where it was intended that passengers should alight, and that a further movement of the train was necessary to bring it to its proper position alongside of the platform. The pursuer's statement does not negative that supposition, and therefore it is quite consistent with the case as stated that the engine-driver in starting the train was only performing his accustomed duty of bringing the train up to its place of discharge.

It is, no doubt, a very great misfortune to the pursuer that he should sustain this serious injury, but I cannot find in the record any averments of fact leading to the conclusion that the Railway Company had failed in its obligation to use reasonable care and skill in carrying the pursuer to his destination.

Lord Kinnear—I am of the same opinion. I am reluctant to criticise a record which has been made up in the Sheriff Court, or even in this Court, in actions of this kind too rigorously, if the averments disclose a substantial ground of action although the averments may not be very skilfully framed. But there is nothing to suggest that the deficiencies of the present record are due to any want of skill on the part of the framer, or to anything but the unsubstantial character of the case itself. The averment of what actually happened seems to me to come to nothing more than this—that the train stopped and went on again. There is no averment that anything was said or done by officers of the company to induce the pursuer to believe that he was in safety to alight, or that he did in fact believe it. All that is said is that when the train stopped the pursuer stood up to take his bag off the rack. There is nothing in that to show that he had any reason to suppose that the train had come to a final stoppage, or that he had even adverted to the contingency of its being set in motion. He may or may not have been prudent in his action, but for ail that appears from his statement the moving of the train may have been perfectly right, and may also have been just such an event as a prudent passenger taking care for his own safety would have anticipated. I therefore agree that there is no issuable matter in this record.

Lord Pearson—I think it important to keep in view that there is no question here as to the stoppage of a train at a platform regarded as an invitation to alight. The case has to do with a passenger still within his compartment and engaged in taking down his hand-luggage from the rack. It is said that he was justified in assuming without anything more that when the train stopped it had stopped finally. I observe that there is no specific averment as to duty on the part of the driver, but the averment of fault on the part of the defenders is that the driver was culpably negligent in starting the train suddenly and unexpectedly after it had stopped at the terminal platform. I cannot hold that in the circumstances averred that is a sufficient averment of fault to infer liability against the defenders.

The Lord President was absent.