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236 Wis. 205

294 N.W 63

Patterson v. Chicago, St. Paul, Minneapolis & Omaha Railway Co.

Wisconsin Supreme Court

Decided September 10, 1940

Wisconsin Supreme Court · decided 1940-09-10

Cited by 4 later decisions — most recently February 1957

1 federal appellate · 3 state decisions

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1940-09-10

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Wickhem, J.

¶1 (dissenting). I can discover here no yardstick by which the jury’s comparison of the negligences involved can be reversed. This is not a crossing accident. Defendant-railroad company was receiving and discharging passengers at a place which required passengers and invitees to cross a track between the train and platform. It was within the province of the jury to conclude that the defendant’s failure to take any effective means of guarding the place between the platform and the train where persons were invited to cross was a more serious default than plain- *215 were invited to cross was a more serious default than plaintiff’s failure to make an adequate observation, and that the negligence, of plaintiff was, in a measure induced by reliance on defendant to keep the place safe. The two types of negligence were wholly different in character, and I think that it would better accord with our previous decisions to leave the comparison to the jury.

¶2 I am authorized to state that Mr. Justice Fairchild and Mr. Justice Martin concur in this dissent.

¶3 A motion for a rehearing was denied, with $25 costs, on December 3, 1940.

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