Goodloe v. Memphis & C.R. Co.

• Decision Date: 19 June 1895
• Court: Alabama Supreme Court
• Parties: GOODLOE v. MEMPHIS & C. R. CO.

18 So. 166

107 Ala. 233

GOODLOE v. MEMPHIS & C. R. CO.

Supreme Court of Alabama

June 19, 1895

Appeal from circuit court, Colbert county; H. C. Speake, Judge.

Action by J. C. Goodloe against Memphis & Charleston Railroad Company for personal injuries. There was judgment for defendant, and plaintiff appeals. Affirmed.

This was an action on the case, brought by the appellant, J. C Goodloe, against the appellee, the Memphis & Charleston Railroad Company, and sought to recover damages for personal injuries, alleged to have been caused by the negligence of the defendant, or its servants or employés. The ground of complaint against the defendant is thus stated in plaintiff's complaint: "The plaintiff became and was a passenger of and on the railroad of the defendant, and thus being a passenger of the defendant, the defendant, by its servants, without any cause or necessity therefor, and contrary to its duty to the plaintiff, did assault the plaintiff, and with violence did push him, so that he was pushed and thrown from the platform of the station at said station of Tuscumbia, over which plaintiff was walking to take passage on the train then about to leave said station in the direction of Barton, a station on said railroad, where the plaintiff as such passenger was then going, and was thereby thrown with violence to the ground, and the plaintiff's leg was broken, and the plaintiff alleges that said injury was caused by the negligence of the defendant." The facts bearing upon the only question considered by the court on the present appeal, are sufficiently stated in the opinion. There were several other rulings to which exceptions were reserved; but it is not deemed necessary to set them out. Upon the introduction of all the evidence, the court, at the request of the defendant gave the general affirmative charge in its behalf; and to the giving of this charge the plaintiff duly excepted. There was judgment for the defendant, and the plaintiff appeals, and assigns as error, among other rulings of the trial court, the giving of the general affirmative charge in favor of the defendant.

Jackson & Sawtelle and Jos. H. Nathan, for appellant.

Humes Shaffey & Speake, for appellee.

HARALSON J.

We examine the single question presented by the defense and alone considered by the appellant,-that the defendant is not guilty, for the reason, that the injury complained of was not inflicted on plaintiff by the defendant's servants or employés, while they were acting within the range but outside of the authority conferred by defendant on them. Other errors assigned are not insisted on in the argument filed, and are therefore, treated as waived. The question presented has been well considered by this and many other courts. It was recently before us in the case of Lampkin v. Railroad Co., 17 So. 448, in which, as the result of the authorities there cited, it was stated, as the well-settled rule, that the carrier's obligation was to protect its passengers against the violence and insults of its own servants and of strangers and copassengers; that a contract exists between a common carrier and its passengers, to use all reasonable exertion to protect them from injury from fellow passengers, and its agents, in charge of the train. In an earlier case, it was said, that "the clearly established doctrine now is, that railroad corporations are liable for all acts of wantonness, rudeness or force, done or caused to be done by their agents or employés, if done in and about the business or duties assigned to them by the corporation; and the rule of vindictive or punitive damages against such corporations for abuse by their employés of the duties and powers confided to them, is the same as that which applies to natural persons, who are guilty of such misconduct. It is confined, however, to abuses perpetrated in the line of duties assigned to them, and does not extend to any tort, wantonness or wrongful act the employés may commit in matters not connected with the service of the railroad corporation. In the line of their assigned duties, they stand in the place of the corporation; without that line, the corporation is bound by nothing they may do." Railroad Co. v. Whitman, 79 Ala. 325. The same principle had been differently but very clearly expressed in Gilliam v. Railroad Co. 70 Ala. 268,-"that if the employé, while acting within the scope of...