Allen v. Chicago, R.I. & P. R. Co.
| Decision Date | 22 April 1916 |
| Citation | 185 S.W. 713,135 Tenn. 6 |
| Parties | ALLEN v. CHICAGO, R.I. & P. R. CO. |
| Court | Tennessee Supreme Court |
Certiorari to Court of Civil Appeals.
Action by B. R. Allen against the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific Railroad Company. Judgment for the defendant was affirmed by the Court of Civil Appeals, and plaintiff brings certiorari. Writ granted, judgment modified, and cause remanded for new trial.
W. B Harris, of Memphis, for plaintiff.
Wright Miles, Waring & Walker, of Memphis, for defendant.
Allen who is a traveling salesman, brought this suit against the railway company to recover damages for his wrongful ejection from a passenger train by the conductor.
The trial judge in effect gave peremptory instructions in favor of the company to the jury on points vital to plaintiff's right of recovery; the jury accordingly rendered a verdict for the railway company, and the rulings were sustained by the Court of Civil Appeals.
Allen was at Widener, Ark., in the pursuit of his business as a traveling salesman; and he desired to leave that place for Round Point, another station on the defendant company's line of railway about 5 miles distant, on a train that passed Widener about 10:30 a. m. The train was about 10 minutes late; and Allen was at the store of a merchant about 75 feet from the station when the train whistled for the station. He went at once to the depot, reaching there just before the train pulled up, but found that the agent who sold tickets was out of his office and on the platform attending to the loading and unloading of baggage and express matter. The village had a population of about 200, and the duties of attending to ticket sales and the handling of baggage and express devolved on the station agent.
Allen approached the agent, then at the express car of the train, and told the agent that he desired to purchase a ticket. The agent replied that he would sell him one so soon as the handling of the express matter was finished; and, after finishing, he went to the office and procured a ticket, but before he could get out to deliver it to Allen the train started off. Allen boarded it, went into the coach assigned to the colored passengers, and through it to the one occupied by white passengers. There he met the conductor, and was asked for his ticket. Allen responded that he had none, but that he had the cash with which to pay the fare, which he proposed to do. The conductor declined to receive the cash and told Allen that the latter could not ride without a ticket. He then stopped the train, and let Allen off the car in the presence of numerous passengers; Allen protesting against the treatment.
Allen, it is found, had an abundance of time to purchase a ticket before the train reached Widener; but he did not have time to do so after he reached the depot because the agent was thus engaged with outside duties.
Allen, in order to reach Round Point, walked the distance at about noon in August.
The railway company had a rule, posted at the depot, requiring passengers to purchase tickets before entering trains. The case was made to turn in the Court of Civil Appeals on the violation by Allen of this rule.
Appellee company contends that Allen's expulsion from the train was thereby justified, and it relies on the following language from 2 Hutchinson on Carriers (3d Ed.) § 1032:
"It is undoubtedly competent for a railroad company as a means of protection against imposition and to facilitate the transaction of its business to require passengers to procure tickets before entering the car, and where this requirement is duly made known, and reasonable opportunities are afforded for complying with it, it may be enforced, either by expulsion from the train, regardless of the tender of the fare in money, or as will be seen in the following section, by requiring the payment of a larger fare upon the train than that for which the ticket might have been procured."
The doctrine thus broadly laid down by the editor of the later edition is not supported by the weight of authority. Indeed, it seems that, in the first edition of this leading work on the law of carriers, a different opinion was expressed by the author, as follows:
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