Birmingham Ry., Light & Power Co. v. Hatton
| Decision Date | 04 June 1914 |
| Docket Number | 809 |
| Citation | 65 So. 934,187 Ala. 573 |
| Parties | BIRMINGHAM RY., LIGHT & POWER CO. v. HATTON. |
| Court | Alabama Supreme Court |
Appeal from City Court of Birmingham; C.W. Ferguson, Judge.
Action by Mrs. Mary Hatton against the Birmingham Railway, Light & Power Company, for damages for failure to transport her to her destination. Judgment for plaintiff, and defendant appeals. Affirmed.
The complaint alleges the relation of passenger and carrier with the operation of two cars, one operated on what is known as the Gate City line, and the other known as East Lake line which lines intersected six blocks short of plaintiff's said destination:
That at such time it was defendant's course of business to issue passengers, when requested by the passengers to do so, and paying full fare to the passenger's destination on said East Lake line beyond said intersection, a check or ticket as evidence of passenger's right to continue said journey on the car operated on said East Lake line from said intersection to passenger's destination beyond said section. That passenger boarded defendant's car on the Gate City line at Twentieth street in said city of Birmingham, to be carried on said Gate City line to the intersection, and thence on said East Lake line, and plaintiff paid to defendant the full fare charged by it for being carried on both her said cars to her destination, and for said check or slip, and it became and was the duty of defendant's conductor on said car on Gate City line to issue to plaintiff said check or slip, but the said conductor who was then and there in charge and control of said car and acting within the line and scope of his employment as such did not do so, and as a proximate consequence thereof plaintiff walked from said intersection a long distance, to wit, six blocks. (Here follows catalogue of injuries and damages.) And plaintiff avers that said conductor negligently failed to issue to plaintiff said check or slip on the occasion aforesaid, and as a proximate consequence of said negligence plaintiff suffered the injuries complained of.
The demurrers were the usual demurrers as to said count being vague, uncertain, and indefinite; did not show with certainty what duty defendant owed plaintiff, or how it violated any duty owed to plaintiff; the averments do not constitute negligence as a matter of law, and do not constitute actionable negligence, and the following additional demurrers: It does not show that defendant contracted to carry plaintiff as its passenger on said car to plaintiff's destination; does not show that defendant contracted or was under a duty to issue a transfer to plaintiff from the Gate City car line to the East Lake car line.
The following charges were refused to defendant:
Assignment 5. Defendant cannot be held responsible in any wise for the fact, if it be a fact, that neither plaintiff nor her husband had any money after their fares were paid. 6. If you find from the evidence that plaintiff had been for some months in a sick and weakened condition prior to August 6, 1911, that on that date she took a trip with her husband in an automobile from her house to Fourth avenue and Twentieth street, and there stood awaiting the car which she boarded and rode to Fifty-Seventh street, and if in her weakened condition she was unable to stand such a trip without suffering a relapse, and did suffer such relapse under such circumstances, defendant would not be responsible therefor, and your verdict must be for the defendant.
Tillman Bradley & Morrow and T.A. McFarland, all of Birmingham, for appellant.
Harsh Beddow & Fitts, of Birmingham, for appellee.
If the first count of the complaint was equivocal and failed therefore, to meet the exact demands of good pleading in its averment of duty on defendant's part to furnish plaintiff with a transfer, as appellant contends, the respect wherein it was defective was not...
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