583
tract be termed speculative? Her expectancy, except in the one feature, — the absence of legal obligation to en force it, — was as well founded as that of a wife or creditor. If a voluntary co-partnership gives to each part ner an insurable interest in the lives of the others; if the relation of superintendent or manager of a business concern gives to his employers an insurable interest in the life of the superintendent or manager, as is well settled, — then the voluntary relation here gave to this plaintiff an insurable interest in the life of one who, in all pecuniary respects, occupied towards her the place of a parent, and the Court below ought not to have held otherwise."
Pa. St. 508, the complaint was that the upper part of a similar door was of glass, whereby the passenger was injured by thrusting his hand through it. Too much glass in that case, too little in this. In West ern Md. R. Co. v. Stanley, 61 Md. 266; 48 Am. Rep. 96, the passenger attempted to shut the car door, there being no employee present to do it, and thrust his hand through the glass, cutting it badly, and he was held entitled to recover.
Consult note, 52 Am. Rep. 135. Under the New York doctrine the policy would have been valid even if the assignee had had no interest in the life insured. Valton v. Association, 20 N. Y. 32, and this is the general doctrine, and so in Pennsylvania, Hill v. United L. Ins. Assoc. 154 Pa. S. C. 29; 45 Am. St. Rep. 807.
Contributory Negligence. — A novel question of contributory negligence was raised in O'Toole v. Pittsburgh & Lake Erie R. Co., 158 Pa. St. 99; 22 Lawyers' Rep. Annotated, 606, where it was held that a passenger upon a street-car approaching a railroad crossing, which has stopped seventy-five feet away from the crossing and again started, is under no duty to be on the lookout to learn if the railroad track can be safely crossed and to jump off, if he discovers an approaching locomotive, especially where he is crippled. It seems to us that this is a case in which no opinion should have been written. If the passenger had jumped off, counsel would have con tended with just as much earnestness and just as little reason, that that was contributory negligence! One other criticism — having deigned to write an opinion, the court should have put no stress whatever on the circumstance that the plaintiff was crippled. Some Philadelphia lawyer will arise by-and-bye, and en deavor to limit this doctrine to cripples! The Court observes : " To impose such a duty upon a passenger, under these circumstances, is going much further than any court has yet gone. All experience has demonstrated that to get off a moving-car is highly dangerous. Therefore it is held that such an act is negligence per se, and the passenger, if thereby injured, except in very rare cases, is guilty of con tributory negligence, and cannot recover. Hence here, if the plaintiff had been on the lookout, and had seen the approaching locomotive, ordinary care did not require he should make a dangerous jump to escape a problematical collision. Admit he had some reason to apprehend danger if he remained in the car. At the worst, this was only, to him, a possible danger. A careful man ignorant of the power of cqntrol of the engineer over the locomotive, or of the motorman over the electric car, and knowing nothing of the rules governing them in approaching the crossing, might very well think one or the other would stop before reaching it. He had no right or power to control or direct those in charge of either. He was warranted in assuming that they knew their business better than a shoemaker, and would, by proper care, avert the possible collision. Therefore holding him rigidly to the rule of ordinary care, at
A Distinction without a Difference.— The slavery of the law to artificial and trifling distinctions is painfully illustrated by a comparison of Hay v. Cohoes Company, 2 N. Y. 159; 51 Am. Dec. 179, Booth v. Rome etc. R. Co., 140 N. Y. 267; 37 Am. St. Rep. 552. In the former it was held that the defendant was liable for injury to the plaintiffs land by rocks thrown thereon by blasting lawfully and carefully conducted on the defendant's land. This was put on the ground of a technical trespass and invasion of the plaintiffs soil. In the latter it was held that the defendant was not liable for an injury to the plaintiffs house by cracking its founda tions, rending its walls and loosening its frame, by blasting similarly conducted. This seems a very unreasonable distinction. The injury to a man is just as serious, whether his house is destroyed by being shaken to pieces by the concussion of a blast, or by rocks thrown upon it by the blast, and it is difficult to see why the defendant is any more to blame in the latter than in the former case.
Negligence — Glass Doors. — A very fanciful action was that of Graeff v. I'hjla. etc. R. Co. 161 Pa. St. 230; 13 L. R. A. 606, in which it was held that the defendant was not liable for the act of a stranger, who, in rushing through a door at the station to take a train, struck the plaintiff with the door, and that the defendant was not bound to have the door of glass above the middle, nor careless in having a screw eye in it to fasten it back. This curious action was somewhat anticipated in Kies v. Erie, 135 Pa. St. 144, and Eisenbrey v. Penn. Co., 141 ibid, 566. In Hayman v. Penn. R. Co., 118
