Coyle v. Southern Ry. Co.

• Decision Date: 31 October 1900
• Citation: 37 S.E. 163,112 Ga. 121
• Parties: COYLE v. SOUTHERN RY. CO.
• Court: Georgia Supreme Court

37 S.E. 163

112 Ga. 121

COYLE v. SOUTHERN RY. CO.

Supreme Court of Georgia

October 31, 1900

Syllabus by the Court.

1. The rule of the railroad commission of this state fixing train rates of fare is admissible in evidence on the trial of a case involving a controversy as to what amount a conductor was entitled to demand from a passenger without a valid ticket for transporting him from a station outside of this state to a station within the same.

2. A railroad ticket having thereon a special contract, signed by the person to whom such ticket was issued, stipulating that it shall be good for the passage of that person only, does not entitle any other person to transportation; nor has a purchaser from the original holder any right to act upon an assurance given by a ticket agent that the ticket will be accepted for such purchaser's passage, when it is in the contract further stipulated that no agent shall have authority to alter, modify, or waive in any particular the terms or conditions therein set forth.

3. Under the common law, which, unless the contrary appears, is presumptively of force in any given state of the American Union whose jurisprudence is founded thereon, a carrier of passengers has the right to make reasonable rules and regulations for the conduct of its business. (a) A rule of a railroad company operative in the state of Tennessee requiring passengers who fail to supply themselves with tickets sold at three cents per mile to pay conductors cash fares at the rate of four cents per mile is reasonable.

4. One who offers to purchase a railroad ticket, to be used upon a given train, after the ticket office, so far as relates to the sale of tickets for that train, has been lawfully closed cannot demand the right to ride upon that train without paying the train rate of fare; nor can one who has been transported upon a train from one station to another without producing a ticket or tendering the proper fare claim the right to resume his journey on that train from the latter station without making a proper settlement for the ride he has actually been permitted to take thereto.

5. When a passenger was lawfully ejected from a train, and prevented from re-entering the same, he had no cause of action, unless more force than was necessary to accomplish these ends was employed.

Error from superior court, Whitfield county; A. W. Fite, Judge.

Action by S. M. Coyle against the Southern Railway Company. Judgment for defendant. Plaintiff brings error. Affirmed.

R. J. & J. McCamy, for plaintiff in error.

Shumate & Maddox, for defendant in error.

LUMPKIN P.J.

An action was brought by Coyle against the Southern Railway Company, in which the plaintiff claimed damages for an alleged wrongful ejection from a train of the defendant. The jury found in favor of the latter, and Coyle excepted to a judgment denying him a new trial. The evidence, taken most favorably for the plaintiff, made, in substance, the following case: He purchased in Chattanooga, Tenn., a railroad ticket from that point to Dalton, Ga. which had been issued to a woman, and which, under the terms of a special contract constituting a part of the same, and signed by her was good for passage for herself only over the defendant's road. This contract also embraced a stipulation that no agent or employé of the company had authority to alter, modify, or waive in any particular the conditions in the contract set forth. The plaintiff "doubted the validity of the said ticket," but upon exhibiting the same to the company's ticket agent at Chattanooga, was informed by the latter that the plaintiff could ride upon it from Chattanooga to Dalton. After receiving this information, he boarded a train of the defendant, and presented the ticket to the conductor, who declined to honor it for passage, but nevertheless took it up, and demanded of the plaintiff $1.40, the train rate of fare between the stations above mentioned. The plaintiff declined to pay this sum, but tendered $1.15, which he claimed was the ticket rate of fare between these points. On reaching Oolte was, a station in the state of Tennessee, the conductor required the plaintiff to leave the train. He alighted therefrom, and undertook to purchase from the agent there a ticket to Dalton. The agent, being engaged in other duties, refused to sell the plaintiff a ticket, but, in the presence of the conductor, informed him that he would be transported to Dalton, his destination, at the ticket rate of fare. To this remark the conductor made no reply. The plaintiff then again boarded the train, and, after it had started, the conductor repeated his demand for $1.40, and the plaintiff once more tendered him $1.15, which was not accepted. When the train arrived at Apperson, Tenn., the next station, the plaintiff was ejected, and, at the instance of the conductor, forcibly prevented by another official of the company from again entering the train before it resumed its journey. The official just mentioned used no more force than was actually necessary to prevent the plaintiff from entering the train, and after it...