Cent. Of Ga. Ry. Co v. Price

• Decision Date: 14 December 1898
• Citation: 106 Ga. 176,32 S.E. 77
• Parties: CENTRAL OF GEORGIA RY. CO. v. PRICE.
• Court: Georgia Supreme Court

32 S.E. 77

(106 Ga. 176)

CENTRAL OF GEORGIA RY. CO.

v.PRICE.

Supreme Court of Georgia.

Dec. 14, 1898.

Carriers—Passenger Conveyed Beyond Destination—Damages. Where, through the negligence of the conductor of a railway company, a passenger on its cars has been carried beyond the point of her destination, such conductor, in the absence of express authority so to do, cannot constitute the proprietor of an hotel, who is entirely unconnected with the company, its agent for the purpose of providing safe and comfortable lodgings for the passenger until she can return on the company's train to her destination. It follows, therefore, that the company is not liable for any injuries or damage such passenger may have sustained while at the hotel, in consequence of any negligence on the part of its proprietor.

(Syllabus by the Court.)

Error from superior court, Macon county; Z. A. Littlejohn, Judge.

Action by Mrs. John S. Price against the Central of Georgia Railway Company. Judgment for plaintiff. Defendant brings error. Reversed.

Wm. D. Kiddoo, for plaintiff in error.

M. Felton Hatcher and Guerry & Hall, for defendant in error.

SIMMONS, C. J. In the view we take of this case, it is unnecessary to deal with the many special grounds of the motion for a new trial. The record discloses that Mrs. Price was a passenger on a train of the defendant company, and that her destination was Winchester, Ga. Through the negligence of the conductor, she was not put off at Winchester, but was carried on to Montezuma. Upon her arrival at the latter place, the conductor advised her to go to the hotel and spend the night, he agreeing to carry her back to Winchester in the morning when his train made the return trip. He accompanied her to an hotel, where a room was assigned her, the conductor agreeing with the proprietor to pay her expenses. She was taken to her room by the proprietor or his servants, and furnished with a kerosene lamp, which she left burning after she had retired to bed. Some time during the night, the lamp, she claims, exploded, and set fire to a mosquito net which covered the bed, and, in her efforts to extinguish the flames, her hands were badly burned. She sued the railway company for damages, and, under the charge of the court, the jury returned a verdict in her favor for $400. A motion for a new trial was made, and was overruled by the trial judge. To this the company excepted.

The contention of the plaintiff In the court below was that when the conductor carried her to the hotel in Montezuma, and asked her to remain there until his return the next morning, he thereby made the proprietor of the hotel the agent of the railway company, and that, if the plaintiff was injured by the negligence of the proprietor or his servants in furnishing her a defective lamp, the railway company was liable, the contract of carriage not having been fully executed, and the plaintiff being still a passenger. The trial judge, in his charge, took this view of the law, and in substance so instructed the jury. We, however, think this was error. A conductor on a passenger train of a railway company is the agent of the company, and the company is bound by all of his acts within the scope of his employment. His business is to superintend the running of the train, look after the comfort and safety of the passengers, and do such other work, in and about the running of the train, as is...