{
  "id": 8626534,
  "name": "CALDWELL WILLIAMS v. SAFE BUS, INCORPORATED",
  "name_abbreviation": "Williams v. Safe Bus, Inc.",
  "decision_date": "1936-06-30",
  "docket_number": "",
  "first_page": "400",
  "last_page": "402",
  "citations": [
    {
      "type": "official",
      "cite": "210 N.C. 400"
    }
  ],
  "court": {
    "name_abbreviation": "N.C.",
    "id": 9292,
    "name": "Supreme Court of North Carolina"
  },
  "jurisdiction": {
    "id": 5,
    "name_long": "North Carolina",
    "name": "N.C."
  },
  "cites_to": [],
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  "last_updated": "2023-07-14T17:57:05.250790+00:00",
  "provenance": {
    "date_added": "2019-08-29",
    "source": "Harvard",
    "batch": "2018"
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  "casebody": {
    "judges": [],
    "parties": [
      "CALDWELL WILLIAMS v. SAFE BUS, INCORPORATED."
    ],
    "opinions": [
      {
        "text": "Schenck, J.\nThis was a civil action instituted in the Forsyth County court to recover damages for personal injuries alleged to have been proximately caused by the negligence of the defendant. The defendant denied that it was negligent, and also pleaded the plaintiff\u2019s contributory negligence in bar of recovery. The defendant tendered an issue as to the contributory negligence of the plaintiff, which the, court declined to submit and tbe defendant made this declination the subject of an exceptive assignment of error.\nThe case was tried upon the following issues:\n\u201c1. \"Was the plaintiff injured by the negligence of the defendant, as alleged in the complaint?\n\u201c2. What amount of damage is the plaintiff entitled to recover of the defendant ?\u201d\nUpon the first issue being answered \u201cYes,\u201d and the second issue being-answered \u201c$450.00,\u201d the court entered judgment for the plaintiff, and the defendant appealed to the Superior Court, assigning errors.\nUpon appeal, the case came on for hearing in the Superior Court, and the court, being of the opinion that the defendant was entitled to have an issue as to the contributory negligence of the plaintiff submitted to the jury, entered judgment remanding the case to the Forsyth County court for a new trial. From this judgment both plaintiff and defendant appealed to the Supreme Court, the plaintiff contending that the judge of the Superior Court erred in not affirming the judgment of the Forsyth County court, and the defendant contending that the judge of the Superior Court erred in not sustaining its exception to the refusal of the Forsyth County court to grant its motion for judgment as of nonsuit.\nThe evidence tended to show that the defendant operated a bus line in the city of Winston-Salem, and was a common carrier of passengers for hire, and that the plaintiff boarded as a passenger one of the defendant\u2019s buses, and that while the plaintiff, with other passengers, was on the bus, the driver of the bus turned it into a filling station of the defendant to fill the tank with gasoline; that the tank of the bus was in the front thereof and the intake of the tank was inside the bus; that while the bus was standing still the driver got out and was in the act of filling the tank by means of a hose which ran from the tank of the filling station to the tank of the bus, when a passenger on the bus, one Plummer Burgess, who was searching the floor of the bus for a \u201cnickel\u201d he had dropped, asked the plaintiff for a match; that the plaintiff gave Burgess a match, which Burgess struck, and caused the fumes from the gasoline which was being conveyed to the tank of the bus .to ignite, and to blaze up; that the plaintiff, to extricate himself from apparent danger, \u201cdove\u201d through a rear window of the bus, and fell on the concrete flooring, thereby cutting and bruising himself. The defendant alleges as contributory negligence, inter alia, \u201cthat the plaintiff contributed to his own injury and proximately caused any alleged injury which he might have sustained by giving the match to another passenger on the bus, when he knew or could have known that his act of giving a match to this passenger under the circumstances, . . . was calculated to produce the resulting injury.\u201d\nWe are of the opinion, and so bold, that the evidence, when viewed in the light of the allegations of the answer, was sufficient to be submitted to the jury upon an issue as to the contributory negligence of the plaintiff, and that the trial judge erred when he declined to submit such an issue, and that the judge of the Superior Court ruled correctly when he remanded the case to the Forsyth County court for a new trial. We therefore find no error on the plaintiff\u2019s appeal.\nThe defendant is not entitled to be heard on its appeal unless and until reversible error has been made to appear on plaintiff\u2019s appeal. Bank & Trust Co. v. Atlantic Greyhound Lines et al., ante, 293, and cases there cited.\nThe judgment of the Superior Court remanding the case to the For-syth County court for a new trial is affirmed.\nPlaintiff\u2019s appeal, affirmed.\nDefendant\u2019s appeal, dismissed.",
        "type": "majority",
        "author": "Schenck, J."
      }
    ],
    "attorneys": [
      "Moses Shapiro for plaintiff.",
      "Price & Jones and Ingle & Bucher for defendant."
    ],
    "corrections": "",
    "head_matter": "CALDWELL WILLIAMS v. SAFE BUS, INCORPORATED.\n(Filed 30 June, 1936.)\n1. Negligence C a \u2014 Evidence that plaintiff gave match to another to strike near gasoline fumes held to support plea of contributory negligence.\nAllegation and evidence that plaintiff, a passenger on defendant\u2019s bus, gave a match to a fellow passenger to strike a light to look for a coin on the floor of the bus while gasoline was being put into the gas tank of the bus through its intake on the inside of the bus, is held sufficient to support the issue of contributory negligence tendered by defendant bus company in plaintiff\u2019s action to recover for injuries sustained when the gas fumes became ignited from the match struck by plaintiff\u2019s fellow passenger.\n3. Appeal and Error A f\u2014\nDefendant is not entitled to be heard on its appeal unless and until reversible error has been made to appear on plaintiff\u2019s appeal.\nAppeal by plaintiff and defendant from Hill, Special Judge, at September Term, 1935, of Eoesyth.\nAffirmed.\nMoses Shapiro for plaintiff.\nPrice & Jones and Ingle & Bucher for defendant."
  },
  "file_name": "0400-01",
  "first_page_order": 466,
  "last_page_order": 468
}