Daigrepont v. Teche Greyhound Lines

• Decision Date: 13 February 1940
• Docket Number: 13045.
• Citation: 7 S.E.2d 174,189 Ga. 601
• Parties: DAIGREPONT v. TECHE GREYHOUND LINES, Inc.
• Court: Georgia Supreme Court

7 S.E.2d 174

189 Ga. 601

DAIGREPONT v. TECHE GREYHOUND LINES, Inc.

No. 13045.

Supreme Court of Georgia

February 13, 1940

Syllabus by the Court.

The judgment of the Court of Appeals in this case is affirmed.

Raymond W. Martin, of La Grange, for plaintiff in error.

Lovejoy & Mayer, of La Grange, for defendant in error.

REID Chief Justice.

Mrs Virginia Daigrepont filed suit against the Teche Greyhound Lines Inc., a motor common carrier of passengers for hire, seeking damages for an alleged wrongful refusal to transport her from Montgomery, Alabama, to LaGrange, Georgia. The trial judge overruled a general demurrer filed by the defendant and the jury returned a verdict in favor of the plaintiff. The defendant sued out a writ of error to the Court of Appeals upon which a judgment was rendered reversing the judgment of the trial judge in overruling the general demurrer. Teche Greyhound Lines Inc. v. Daigrepont, 60 Ga.App. 389, 3 S.E.2d 857. This court granted a certiorari on the theory that the relative rights and duties of a public carrier and one seeking transportation, under the facts alleged in the petition, presented a question of gravity and importance.

After a careful study of the authorities, we are of the opinion that the decision and judgment of the Court of Appeals is correct, and should be affirmed. It is the legal duty of a common carrier to receive and transport a person who has purchased a ticket over its lines, to the destination called for by the ticket upon the purchaser's compliance with such reasonable regulations as the carrier may adopt for its own safety and the benefit of the public. Code, § 18-202. Should a carrier, in violation of the duty so imposed upon it, illegally expel a passenger from its bus and wrongfully refuse to carry him to his destination, it would be liable to the passenger for damages proximately resulting therefrom. Code, §§ 105-101, 105-104; Georgia Railroad & Banking Co. v. Eskew, 86 Ga. 641, 12 S.E. 1061, 22 Am.St.Rep. 490; Atlanta Con. St. Railway Co. v. Keeny, 99 Ga. 266, 25 S.E. 629, 23 L.R.A. 824; Southwestern Railroad v. Singleton, 67 Ga. 306; Seaboard Air-Line Ry. v. O'Quin, 124 Ga. 357, 52 S.E. 427, 2 L.R.A.,N.S., 472; Head v. Georgia Pacific Ry. Co., 79 Ga. 358, 7 S.E. 217, 11 Am.St.Rep. 434; Georgia Railroad & Banking Co. v. Dougherty, 86 Ga. 744, 12 S.E. 747, 22 Am.St.Rep. 499; Southern Ry. Co. v. Barlow, 104 Ga. 213, 30 S.E. 732, 69 Am.St.Rep. 166; East Tennessee Va. & Ga. Ry. Co. v. King, 88 Ga. 443, 14 S.E. 708; Southeastern Greyhound Lines v. Suits, 55 Ga.App. 371, 190 S.E. 417.

While a person who has purchased a ticket for transportation over the lines of a common carrier has the right to use the facilities of the carrier to that end, it is a sine quo non to the exercise of that right that upon boarding the conveyance of the carrier, he deliver to the person in charge thereof his ticket, and where the same is returned to him, to produce it upon demand at reasonable times thereafter during the journey. Unless the failure to produce the ticket is due to the fault of the carrier, the passenger may be ejected and further transportation refused in the absence of an offer to pay his fare. As tersely stated by Mr. Justice Lamar in rendering the decision of this court in Harp v. Southern R. Co., 119 Ga. 927, 47 S.E. 206, 207, 100 Am.St.Rep. 212; 'the passenger must produce his ticket, pay his fare, or suffer expulsion.'

According to the allegations of the petition, the plaintiff purchased a ticket from the defendant carrier at New Orleans for transportation for herself and baggage from that point to LaGrange. She presented her ticket to the operator of the bus at New Orleans who inspected and punched same. At Mobile, Alabama, she presented her ticket to the operator of the bus who took charge of the bus at that point. When the bus arrived at Montgomery, Alabama, she alighted therefrom upon being ordered to do so by the defendant's agents. She went directly into the rest room in the bus station, and while she was washing her face her ticket to LaGrange and all her money were stolen. She immediately reported this fact to the agents of the defendant, including the driver, who was to operate the bus on to LaGrange. The agent of the defendant who had operated the bus from Mobile to Montgomery also informed said driver that the plaintiff had purchased a ticket on to LaGrange. She also presented to said driver her baggage checks, showing that they were checked to LaGrange. Nevertheless, she was refused transportation. The plaintiff further alleged that by reason of the defendant's wrongful refusal to transport her on said bus to LaGrange she suffered great mortification, mental pain, humiliation, a serious physical shock, and physical and nervous impairment.

Since the question presented is the sufficiency of the petition to withstand a general demurrer, it must be construed most strongly against the plaintiff. Accordingly, since it is not otherwise alleged, it is proper to assume that the ticket purchased by the plaintiff was issued to bearer; that its use was not limited to that particular bus; and that the portion of the ticket entitling her to transportation from Montgomery to LaGrange had not been punched, and was subject to use by any other person who might present the same. Under such circumstances it is clear that the plaintiff was not entitled to transportation. 'The loss of a ticket by a passenger falls on him, not on the carrier. The reason is obvious. Passage tickets, in the absence of restrictive conditions, are assignable, and good in the hands of any one. If the loss of a ticket were a sufficient excuse for nonpayment of fare, a carrier might be subjected to the burden of carrying two or more persons for a single fare.' Fetter Carr. Pass.§ 279. This was the express ruling of this court in Harp v. Southern Ry. Co., supra. See also in this connection, Southern R. Co. v. DeSaussure, 116 Ga. 53, 42 S.E. 479; Foskey v. Wrightsville & Tennille R. Co., 19 Ga.App. 670, 92 S.E. 34; Wilson v. Southern Ry. Co., 143 Ga. 189, 84 S.E. 445; Union Traction Co. v. Vestal, 184 Ind. 21, 110 N.E. 211; Standish v. Narragansett S. S. Co., 111 Mass. 512, 15 Am.Rep. 66; Rogers v. Atlantic City R. Co., 57 N.J.L. 703, 34 A. 11; Gulf, C. & S. F. Co. v. McCormick, 45 Tex.Civ.App. 425, 100 S.W. 202; Jerome v. Smith, 48 Vt. 230, 21 Am.Rep. 125; Crawford v. Cincinnati, H. & D. R. Co., 26 Ohio St. 580, Fleck v. Missouri, K. & T. R. Co., Tex.Civ.App., 191 S.W. 386; Nutter v. Southern R. Co., 78 S.W. 470, 25 Ky.Law Rep. 1700; Adams v. Southern R. Co., 103 S.C. 327, 87 S.E. 1007, L.R.A.1916D, 1183; Bolles v. Kansas City Southern R. Co., 134 Mo.App. 696, 115 S.W. 459.

This being true, it makes no difference that the agents of the defendant actually knew that the plaintiff had purchased a ticket to LaGrange and that she made it reasonably to appear that it had been stolen. Nor did the presentation of her baggage checks entitle her to transportation. It is not alleged that the ticket could not be used by another without the baggage checks, and we must assume that it could be so used. The only purpose that the production of the baggage checks could serve would be to show that she had purchased a ticket to LaGrange, and as already pointed out this would not be controlling on the carrier. Counsel for plaintiff recognizes the principles set forth but points out that in the present case the plaintiff was recuperating from a serious operation and was in a weakened and feeble condition that the agents of the defendant knew this; that notwithstanding the fact that she requested to be allowed to remain on the bus during the stop at Montgomery, she was ordered to alight, and that she...