Blackman v. West Jersey & S. S. R. Co.

• Decision Date: 08 December 1903
• Docket Number: 58.
• Citation: 126 F. 252
• Parties: BLACKMAN v. WEST JERSEY & S.S.R. CO.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Pennsylvania

126 F. 252

BLACKMAN v. WEST JERSEY & S.S.R. CO.

No. 58.

United States Circuit Court, E.D. Pennsylvania.

December 8, 1903

J Joseph Murphy, for plaintiff.

John Hampton Barnes, for defendant.

J. B MCPHERSON, District Judge.

In August, 1901, the plaintiff, with his wife and a small child went to Atlantic City by the Reading Railroad, having purchased excursion tickets by that route. By mistake they began the return journey in a train of the defendant company and the error was not discovered until their tickets were inspected at a point near Hammonton. The conductor then demanded two full fares to Camden, which the plaintiff professed his total inability to pay. There is some dispute concerning what happened next, but for present purposes it is unimportant to set out the two accounts of the transaction, or to inquire which is probably correct. It is enough to say that the plaintiff and his family were not ejected from the train, as they might lawfully have been, but were carried to Camden, and taken by the conductor to the ticket receiver's office in the railway station. There is a dispute, also, concerning what then took place, but it is equally unimportant to weigh the conflicting testimony on this point. The essential matter is what is now to be stated: At the end of the interview, the fares not having been paid, a police officer was called, the plaintiff was committed to his custody upon a charge made by the conductor, and was locked up overnight in the station house at Camden. This arrest was made under a law of New Jersey, which may be found in 2 Gen.St.p. 2671, Secs. 18, 19, and reads as follows:

'Sec 18. That is any person travel or attempt to travel in any carriage of any railroad company, or of any other railroad company or party using any railway, without having previously paid his fare and with intent to avoid payment thereof, or if any person having paid his far for a certain distance, knowingly and wilfully proceed in any such carriage beyond such distance without previously paying the additional fare for the additional distance, and with intent to avoid payment thereof, or if any person knowingly and wilfully refuse or neglect on arriving at the point to which he has paid his fare to quit such carriage, every such person shall for every such offense forfeit to the company running the train whereof such carriage shall be a part, a sum not exceeding five dollars, which fine shall be imposed with costs by any justice of the peace, before whom such person shall be brought on complaint made on oath or...