Cent. Of Ga. Ry. Co v. Dorsey

• Decision Date: 11 December 1902
• Citation: 116 Ga. 719,42 S.E. 1024
• Parties: CENTRAL OF GEORGIA RY. CO. v. DORSEY.
• Court: Georgia Supreme Court

42 S.E. 1024

116 Ga. 719

CENTRAL OF GEORGIA RY. CO.

v.DORSEY.

Supreme Court of Georgia.

Dec. 11, 1902.

RAILWAYS—NEGLIGENCE—CARRYING PASSENGER PAST STATION — DAMAGES — FRIGHT — PROXIMATE CAUSE—EVIDENCE—CONTINUING TORT—JURISDICTION.

1. Damages traceable in some measure to a tortious act, but resulting chiefly from other and contingent circumstances, and not the legal or natural consequence of the act, are too remote to be the basis of recovery against the wrongdoer.

2. It follows that, where a female passenger on a railroad train was carried beyond her station, and the train stopped near the next station, and the passenger walked at night, and without escort, through the town, to the house of a friend in that town, she would not be allowed to show that she was frightened by hearing loud voices of negro men, who were walking behind her, unless it is also made to appear that the locality was one in which such occasion for fright was likely to occur, and that the railroad company had notice of this.

¶ 2. See Carriers, vol. 9, Cent. Dig. § 1082.

3. Where a continuous tort by a railroad company is commenced in one county and completed in another, the principal damage being done in the latter county, the courts of that county have jurisdiction of the cause of action.

(Syllabus by the Court.)

Error from superior court Henry county; W. A. Brown, Judge pro hac.

Action by N. E. Dorsey against the Central of Georgia Railway Company. Judgment for plaintiff, and defendant brings error. Reversed.

R. L. Berner and Hall & Cleveland, for plaintiff in error.

W. T. Dickens, G. W. Bryan, and L. R. Ray, for defendant in error.

SIMMONS, C. J. It appears from the record that Mrs. Dorsey purchased a ticket of the Central of Georgia Railway Company at East Point Ga., one of its stations, for transportation to Lovejoy, Ga., another of its sta tions, —a distance of about 16 miles. The conductor at East Point stood at the front end of the ladies' coach, and Mrs. Dorsey boarded the coach at the rear end. During the passage of the train between the two points, the conductor failed to discover Mrs. Dorsey, and she failed to call his attention to her presence on the train, or that her destination was Love-joy. The train was not stopped at Lovejoy for her to get off. After she discovered that she had passed her destination, she requested another passenger to find the conductor. The fellow passenger did so. The conductor then stopped the train. Before the stop was made, the train had run a short distance beyond the station at Hampton, the station on the road which was next beyond Lovejoy. The conductor assisted Mrs. Dorsey off, and she undertook to walk to the house of a friend, who resided in the town of Hampton. In her testimony she said that she walked back to the station, and there was no light there. She then went on along the road leading to her friend's house. On her way to the station she heard loud voices of people, whom she supposed to be negroes, and after she left the station these negroes followed her, talking loudly. She became very much frightened and alarmed on account of the voices of the negroes and their following her. At a cross-street she turned toward the house of her friend, and the negroes took another street. This testimony as to her fright because of the voices of the negroes and their following her was objected to by defendant's counsel, and the objections overruled by the court. The jury returned a verdict for the plaintiff. The defendant moved for a new trial, and the admission of the evidence just referred to was made one of the grounds of the motion. The court overruled the motion, and the movant excepted.

1, 2. This is the third time this case has been before this court (106 Ga. 826, 32 S. E. 873; 113 Ga. 564, 38 S. E. 958), but the last trial seems to have been the first at which objection was made to the evidence as to the plaintiff's hearing the negroes following her, and as to her consequent fright, and the damages resulting to her therefrom. The principal objection made to this evidence was that it did not show such damages as could be recovered, because the damages sought to be proved were too...