Gulf, C. & S. F. Ry. Co. v. Moore

• Decision Date: 05 December 1904
• Citation: 83 S.W. 362
• Parties: GULF, C. & S. F. RY. CO. v. MOORE.
• Court: Texas Supreme Court

Page 362

83 S.W. 362

GULF, C. & S. F. RY. CO. v. MOORE.

Supreme Court of Texas.

December 5, 1904.

Error to Court of Civil Appeals of Fourth Supreme Judicial District.

Action by W. Z. Moore against the Gulf, Colorado & Santa Fé Railway Company. Judgment for plaintiff was affirmed by the Court of Civil Appeals on condition of remittitur (80 S. W. 426), and defendant brings error. Reversed.

Ramsey & Odell and J. W. Terry, for plaintiff in error. Ward & Plummer, for defendant in error.

WILLIAMS, J.

The defendant in error (plaintiff below) purchased a ticket from plaintiff in error at Berwyn, a station on its road in the Indian Territory, entitling him to passage over the road from that point, by way of Cleburne, to Venus, Tex., another station on the same road. In order to reach Venus it was necessary for plaintiff, when he arrived at Cleburne, to leave the train on which he traveled from Berwyn, and to take another train from Cleburne, going over defendant's Dallas Branch, to Venus. Three passenger trains daily were run by Venus over the Dallas Branch. The first to leave Cleburne early in the morning was run on very fast schedule, for the benefit of through passengers, carrying through sleepers and mail and express matter from Galveston to St. Louis, and, in order that it might make the requisite time, was scheduled to pass a number of stations at small places, including Venus, without stopping. By such regulation, however, this train was allowed to and did stop at these stations when necessary to put off passengers arriving there upon coupon tickets from other carriers connecting with defendant's road, and to take on passengers whose destinations were points beyond defendant's line. With these exceptions, this train, according to its schedule, passed these stations without stopping. The other two trains stopped habitually at Venus, and there is no evidence that they do not furnish reasonable facilities for all travel. The plaintiff arrived at Cleburne at 11 o'clock at night, and remained there until the following morning, when he entered the first of the trains just mentioned. When the train reached Alvarado, the station nearest Venus at which it was scheduled to stop, the conductor, according to plaintiff's contention, put him off, for the reason that he (the conductor) was not authorized to stop at Venus for the purpose of discharging plaintiff; and such action was the cause of this suit.

The district court, in effect, charged the jury, as matter of law, that plaintiff was entitled to be carried to Venus upon his ticket, and to have the train stopped there to let him get off, and was entitled to recover if he was ejected from the train at Alvarado. The plaintiff recovered verdict and judgment for $1,000, and, upon appeal by the defendant, the Court of Civil Appeals, after requiring a remittitur of damages deemed excessive, rendered a judgment for plaintiff for $100.

It is settled beyond controversy that, in the absence of contract or statute limiting their rights in this particular, railroad companies are not bound to stop all their trains at every station, but are required to stop at each station a sufficient number of trains to afford reasonable accommodations for the travel to and from it. Having done this they are at liberty to run other trains, for other purposes, without incurring the duty of stopping at every station. Such regulations of their schedules are uniformly held to be reasonable, and to afford no cause of complaint to a passenger, who gets upon a train which does not stop at his destination, when the servants of the company refuse to disobey their orders and stop at a place at which the particular train is not scheduled to stop. On the contrary, the passenger, with means at his command of ascertaining before he enters a train which one will deliver him at his destination, must avail himself of his opportunities and enter the right conveyance. I. & G. N. R. Co. v. Hassell, 62 Tex. 256, 50 Am. Rep. 525; Beauchamp v. I. & G. N. R. Co., 56 Tex. 239; 6 Cyc. Law & Procedure, pp. 556-558, and cases cited; 1 Felton, Carriers of Passengers, §§ 303-307, and cases cited. In several of the cases cited, trains from which plaintiffs were ejected were scheduled and managed like the one in this case, and the same difference made between through and local traffic. That such is the law, in the absence of statutory regulations, was recognized by the courts below; their action being based on the opinion that this case is controlled by section 3 of the act of Congress regulating interstate commerce, which is as follows: "Sec. 3. (Undue Preferences Prohibited—Equal Facilities Except in Terminals, to Connecting Lines.) That it shall be unlawful for any common carrier subject to the provisions of this act to make or give any undue or unreasonable preferences or advantage to any particular person, company, firm, corporation, or locality, or any particular description of traffic, in any respect whatsoever, or to subject any particular person, company, firm, corporation, or locality, or any particular description of traffic, to any undue or unreasonable prejudice or disadvantage in any respect whatsoever. Every common carrier subject to the provisions of this act shall, according to their respective powers, afford all reasonable, proper and equal facilities for the interchange of traffic between their respective lines, and for the receiving, forwarding, and delivering of passengers and property to and from their several lines and those connecting therewith, and shall not discriminate in their rates and charges between such connecting lines; but this shall not be construed as requiring any such common carrier to give the use of its tracks or terminal facilities to another carrier engaged in like business."...