Gallena v. Hot Springs Railroad

• Decision Date: 01 January 1882
• Citation: 13 F. 116
• Parties: GALLENA v. HOT SPRINGS RAILROAD.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Arkansas

13 F. 116

GALLENA v. HOT SPRINGS RAILROAD.

United States Circuit Court, E.D. Arkansas.

April Term, 1882

Casey Young and G. W. Gordon, for plaintiff.

John M Moore, for defendant.

CALDWELL D. J., (charging jury.)

The plaintiff, a citizen of Memphis, Tennessee, on the twenty-eighth of July, 1881, purchased an excursion coupon ticket from Memphis to Hot Springs and return, good until the thirty-first day of August of the same year. He traveled on this ticket from Memphis to Hot Springs, and on the eighteenth day of August, with his wife and daughter, who had preceded him to the springs, took passage on defendant's train at Hot Springs to return to Memphis. When the conductor of the train came to plaintiff for his ticket, which he did according to custom soon after the train left Hot Springs the plaintiff tendered to him the excursion ticket before mentioned. This ticket the conductor refused to honor, saying that before he could accept it the plaintiff must present it to the defendant's agent at Hot Springs, identify himself, and sign the ticket, and have the agent at that place stamp it. The plaintiff offered to identify himself to the conductor, and sign the ticket on the train, or to do the same before the agent of the defendant company on the arrival of the train at Malvern, but the conductor declined to permit him to do so, and required him to leave the train at once. The train was then stopped, and in compliance with the demand of the conductor the plaintiff got off, but on receiving assurance from one or more passengers on the train that his ticket was good, and to get on the car again, he did so.

The conductor did not see the plaintiff at the time he got on after being put off, but in a short time afterwards, seeing the plaintiff on the train, proceeded to put him off a second time, in the manner and under the circumstances detailed to you in the testimony.

The questions in the case to be determined by the court and jury are:

(1) Did the conductor have a legal right to put the plaintiff off the train? (2) If he had such right, was it exercised in a proper manner and at a proper place? (3) If the conductor had either no right to put the plaintiff off the train, or if, having the right, he exercised it in an improper manner and at an improper place, what damages shall the plaintiff receive for such wrongful act? 1. That the plaintiff purchased and paid for the excursion ticket mentioned, and that he was the bona fide holder of the same at the time he was put off the train, is not contested. But there are certain conditions or stipulations contained on this ticket to which the plaintiff subscribed, the fifth of which reads as follows:

'It is not good for return passage unless the holder identifies himself or herself as the original purchaser to the satisfaction of an authorized agent of the Hot Springs Railroad; and when officially signed and dated in ink, and duly witnessed and stamped by said agent, this ticket shall then be good only one day after such date, and in no case after the thirty-first day of August following date of sale.'

And these further stipulations comprise a part of the contract signed by the plaintiff;

'Unless all the conditions on this ticket are fully complied with, it shall be void.'

'In consideration of the reduced rate at which this ticket was sold, I agree to the above contract.'

The contract is signed by the plaintiff and the agent of the railroad company, and immediately below the first coupon on the return part of the ticket is this notification:

'TO PURCHASERS.-- Read the contract and take notice that the return part of this ticket must be stamped and your signature witnessed by a ticket agent of the Hot Springs Railroad before it will be honored for passage.'

The following is the sixth clause of the contract subscribed by the plaintiff:

'I, the original purchaser, hereby agree to sign my name, and otherwise identify myself as such, whenever called upon to do so by any conductor or agent of the line or lines over which this ticket reads.'

Confessedly this sixth clause, taken by itself, would imply that all the holder had to do was to sign his name and identify himself as the original purchaser when called upon to do so by any conductor or agent of the railroad company, and that until such demand was made upon him he had nothing to do. But in the opinion of the court this sixth clause does not annul or supersede the requirements of the fifth clause, but they both stand and are effectual for the purpose for which they were severally intended. If the usual full-fare tickets issued to passengers contained like conditions with those on this ticket, the purchaser whose attention was not expressly called to them before he took passage, and who did not assent to them, would probably not be bound thereby. But where one without being induced thereto by fraud signs a contract for a special-rate ticket, the law conclusively presumes he knows the contents of such contract, and he is bound thereby.

It follows, therefore, that the plaintiff should have identified himself to an agent of the defendant company, and otherwise complied with the requirements of the fifth clause of the contract, before taking passage on the train at Hot Springs, and that not having done so he had not, under the terms of the contract between himself and the company, the right to return on that ticket. It matters not that the plaintiff was in fact the original purchaser of the ticket, and that he was ready and offered to sign the ticket, and identify himself as such to the conductor on the train, or to the agent at Malvern, upon the arrival of the train at that place. This is a technical and strict legal construction of the contract, but it is one the railroad company had a right to insist on; and standing on its strict legal rights under the contract between itself and the plaintiff, the conductor had a right to refuse to honor the plaintiff's ticket, and require him to leave the cars; and if the plaintiff declined to do so, the conductor had a strict legal right to remove him therefrom at a proper place and in a proper manner. 'The law allows it, and the court awards it.'

2. But where the law gives the conductor this right, it at the same time regulates the mode of its exercise. Where the legal right to eject or remove a passenger from the cars exists, the law does not invest the conductor with the power to effect the removal at such place and in such mode and manner as his whim, caprice, or malice may dictate or suggest. But the removal must be effected at a proper place, and with no more confusion, force, or violence than is reasonably necessary for the purpose. This is due to the other passengers on the train, no less than the passenger ejected. Especially is this rule applicable to a case where the passenger is on the train in good faith, holding a ticket for which he has paid the required price, but which he cannot legally require the conductor to honor, on account of a mere oversight to comply with some of its numerous conditions, or an honest misinterpretation of them on his part, or more likely from an utter ignorance of their existence. A passenger on a train under such circumstances is not to be regarded or treated as though he were a felon or an outlaw.

Applying these general principles of law to the case at bar, I instruct you that before the conductor required the plaintiff to get off the train he should have stopped it at a station or depot where the plaintiff, if he had chosen so to do, could have got off without danger, or where, if he declined voluntarily to get off, he could have been put off without injury or danger of injury of any kind except such as he might necessarily and justly bring upon himself by forcible resistance to the lawful authority of the conductor. Where the right to put a peaceable passenger off the train exists, it must be exercised at a station or depot. The humanity and justice of the law will not permit a conductor to put such a passenger off the train at any place his caprice may suggest. If the law were otherwise, it would be in the power of a conductor to inflict great oppression on a passenger whom he had the right to remove from his train. A passenger put off between stations on roads running through swamps or other unsettled districts might suffer great hardships, and even perish, before he could reach shelter or food.

The conductor himself testifies that the plaintiff not only made no forcible resistance to his authority, but that he never threatened nor intimated that it was his purpose to do so at any time. He told the conductor that while he would offer no resistance to being put off, he would not voluntarily get off, because he believed his ticket was good, and he wanted to test his right to ride on it. The conductor further testifies that before making any effort to induce plaintiff to get off the car the second time, he went to the baggage car and procured a loaded revolver, of the army size, with which he returned to the car in...