Forrester v. Southern Pac. Co.
| Decision Date | 12 August 1913 |
| Docket Number | 1,860. |
| Parties | FORRESTER v. SOUTHERN PAC. CO. |
| Court | Nevada Supreme Court |
Appeal from District Court, Washoe County; W. H. A. Pike, Judge.
Action by Mamie A. Forrester, as administratrix of Dick Forrester deceased, against the Southern Pacific Company. Judgment for the plaintiff, and defendant appeals. Affirmed.
Dick Forrester, a painter and paper hanger by trade, 27 years of age and married, purchased at Houston, Tex., from the Houston & Texas Central Railroad Company, acting for itself and as agent of the appellant, a railroad ticket entitling him to transportation from Houston to San Francisco over the lines of railroad of the selling company, its connecting lines, and over appellant's railroad from Ogden to San Francisco. While properly aboard one of appellant's passenger cars en route from Ogden to his destination, and, according to the evidence on behalf of the plaintiff, after complying with different requirements and requests for the validation of the ticket, he was, on September 22, 1907, by the train agent of the appellant, insulted and humiliated in the presence of other passengers, deprived of his ticket upon the claim that he was not the purchaser, that he was not Forrester, or that he had stolen the ticket or obtained it from a scalper, and without his consent his suit case was searched, and he was finally ejected from the train at Montello, Nev. It is said by appellant's attorney that he was put off the train because the ticket contained too many punch marks, and because the agent was not satisfied with Forrester's attempts to identify himself by test signatures which differed in appearance from the signatures on the ticket. These signatures are before us, and appear to be in the same handwriting as the two signatures of Forrester upon his ticket. This is not denied. For the respondent it is said no objection that the ticket contained too many punch marks was made by the train agent to Forrester. The train agent was authorized to confiscate tickets, and in addition to salary was allowed by the appellant company a commission upon each invalid ticket taken up by him and charged for improperly confiscating tickets. At the time Forrester was expelled from the car he was ill, and his sickness was known to appellant's employés. This action was brought by him against the appellant in the district court at Reno, but before it was tried he died there, about five months after the time on which he was ejected from the train. After his death his widow petitioned for letters of administration upon his claim against the appellant, which letters were granted to her by the district court at Reno, and on motion she was substituted as plaintiff in the case. After such substitution there was a trial, and judgment and verdict in favor of plaintiff for $11,115, of which $1,115 was for such items as fare, hospital, nursing, and physician's fees.
The answers made by witnesses to a few questions upon the trial give a better understanding of the facts of the case. In his deposition, taken by stipulation at the request of appellant's counsel about 12 days before his death, and which was introduced on the trial, Forrester gave testimony regarding the taking of his ticket and his ejection from the train, in part as follows: "Q. What was that trouble? A. Well, the whole trouble, why he comes around taking up tickets. I suppose he was a train detective or train agent; everybody was giving him his ticket. Then this conductor followed, checking hats; there was three of them. I don't know what the other man was. I gave him the ticket, and he takes it, and signs it, and gives it back to me, and then says: 'Wait a minute.' He says: 'Give me back your ticket.' I took it and gave it to him, and he says: 'Sign this piece of paper; this piece of card.' He says: 'Sign your name.' He had forgotten to get me to sign it. I turned around and signed it in the window of the car. There were three men in the seat, and it was crowded. I signed it and gave it back to him. He takes it and says: 'Wait a minute.' He went away and came back again. He went away two or three different times, and he came back and says: 'This ain't your ticket.' And I says: 'It's my ticket.' He said: 'Where did you get it?' I said: 'I bought it at Houston, Tex., for $25.' He says: 'Go on and tell the truth here,' he says, 'about this thing.' 'You either swiped this ticket, or got it from the scalpers; tell the truth about it and go on and pay your fare.' He asked me the time I had had the ticket, and I told him it had been taken up four days and four nights about. 'Well,' he says, 'you have got to get off, and the ticket is no good; that isn't your name.' Well, I showed him, I never had any letters, but showed him some union cards, a couple of working permits from Houston that was made out within the same week I purchased my ticket. I showed them to him, and he looked at them, and gave them back. He said: 'They don't belong to you.' I says: 'I suppose they are good.' I had a receipt for money written on the back of one permit to be sent to California for clearance card of different union, and of course I showed him that, and he was mad. He got sore and picked up my suit case, and went all through it looking at my laundry marks. He began to talk louder and got saucy. There were five or six men in the car takes it up, and he got pretty tough. You know they took it up on my behalf, so he finally says: 'We put off five or six men here every day.' I says: 'You do?' I says: I had a fever at the time from being changed in climate, and I told him: 'I am not in no condition to be put off, especially on a desert like this, and I haven't got sufficient money to pay my way across the desert, as it amounted to more than where I started from, but I don't know exactly the fare from there Montello to San Francisco.' Q. What happened next? A. Well, the conductor then he says: 'Well, what are we going to do with this man?' This fellow Lilly says: 'Well, I will attend to that.' He takes my ticket and goes off. He says: 'You get off at Montello; you will find a box car there to sleep in.' He says: Well, I told him he would have to put me off. I wouldn't get off. He turned around to the conductor and brakeman and takes my grip and slammed it back together, and threw it in the aisle and said, when we got to Montello, he says: 'You get off this train.' He turns around to the conductor and brakeman and says that 'this man is to be put off at Montello,' so he gets off at the next station.
He takes my ticket with him. A while after he goes, the conductor came to me and he says: 'Why did you let him take your ticket away?' 'Well, you see, why don't you, he just reached over and pulled it out of my hand and asked to look at it the third time.' The conductor then says: I says: 'All right you fellows just take hold of me and lead me to the door; that's all I want.' He says: 'If we have to do that, we will.' I says: 'All right, you do it.' One got on each side of me. I says: 'You will have to take me and put me off'--and he says: 'All right, we are instructed to do that, and we will have to do that.' He says: 'You have got no ticket even to show the next man that you was ever on this train,' which I didn't have after this agent had taken it up. Well he lead me to the door, and the brakeman takes my grip and puts it off the train, and sets it down, and helped me down off the car, and the conductor says to me, he says: 'You have got a fever; you don't seem well.' * * * Q. After the train agent finally took your ticket from you, did you ask him to return it to you? A. Yes sir; I asked him for a receipt for it, and he says: 'No; you don't need it, the ticket don't belong to you.' Then he says: 'I will give you a receipt under a different name, but not under the name of Dick Forrester.' Q. Now what did he say when you asked him for the ticket? A. He said: 'No,' the ticket belonged to him. Q. He said: 'No,' the ticket belonged to him; did he say then and there in a loud tone of voice that the ticket was not your ticket? A. Yes, sir. Q. Did he say that you did not buy it at Houston? A. Yes, sir. Q. Did he say the ticket didn't belong to you? A. Yes, sir. Q. Did he say that you had swiped it or had procured it from the scalpers? A. Yes, sir. Q. Did he say that your name was not Dick Forrester? A. Yes, sir. Q. Then he demand that you sign your full name? A. He did. Q. Was that said in a loud or low tone of voice? A. Loud voice. Q. Could the other passengers hear that? A. Did they? Yes, sir. Q. Well, now how did you feel when he talked in that way? A. Well, I felt that it wasn't anybody's business. Q. Did you feel insulted? A. I did. I had a right to. Q. Did you feel mortified? A. I did. Q. Now then when the conductor and brakeman put you off of the train at Montello, what did they say, and what did they do...
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