Gulf, M. & N. R. Co. v. Jones

• Citation: 125 So. 114,155 Miss. 689
• Decision Date: 16 December 1929
• Docket Number: 28249
• Parties: GULF, M. & N. R. CO. v. JONES
• Court: Mississippi Supreme Court

125 So. 114

155 Miss. 689

GULF, M. & N. R. CO. v. JONES

No. 28249

Supreme Court of Mississippi

December 16, 1929

Division A

1. CARRIERS. Whether passenger put off train at wrong station was not sufficiently sure of station to impose on her duty not to accept porter's statement held for jury.

In action by passenger put off train at wrong station, question whether passenger was not sufficiently sure that train had not arrived at her destination to impose on her duty not to accept porter's statement that it had arrived there held for jury.

2. NEW TRIAL. Excessive verdicts are within control of trial court judges.

Excessive verdicts are within control of judges of trial courts, and they are charged with duty of awarding relief therefrom.

3 CARRIERS. One thousand five hundred dollars to girl put off at wrong station, with result that she contracted cold, held excessive by one thousand two hundred dollars.

Verdict of one thousand five hundred dollars to girl put off at wrong station, a flag station six miles from her destination, when returning home from college for holidays, with result that she contracted cold, held excessive by one thousand two hundred dollars.

HON. C P. LONG, Judge.

APPEAL from circuit court of Pontotoc county HON. C. P. LONG, Judge.

Action by Jeannette Jones against the Gulf, Mobile & Northern Railroad Company. From a judgment for plaintiff, defendant appeals. Affirmed conditionally.

Judgment affirmed.

B. N. Knox, of New Albany, and Flowers, Brown & Hester, of Jackson, for appellant.

The direction or invitation of the conductor or other person, within the scope of his authority, justified the passenger in complying therewith, unless by doing so he will expose himself to danger, plainly open to his observation, that a prudent man would not incur, but that he cannot, except at his own peril, obey such direction or invitation, when to do so would expose him to plain and apparent danger.

5 R. C. L., page 54; Bardwell v. Mobile & Ohio R. R. Co., 63 Miss. 574; Farrell v. G. W. Ry. Co., 100 Minn. 36, 111 N.W. 388; Florida & East Coast Ry. Co. v. Wade, 43 So. 775.

A verdict of fifteen hundred dollars was grossly excessive, where young lady got off at wrong station and suffered no ill treatment, no embarrassment or insult and but slight inconvenience.

Y. & M. V. Railroad Co. v. O'Keefe, 125, Miss. 536, 88 So. 1; Reynolds Tobacco Co. v. Stringer, 103 So. 5; Case v. Y. & M. V. Railroad Co., 114 Miss. 21; Y. & M. V. R. R. Co. v. Duke, 74 So. 693.

It was the duty of the trial judge to have corrected excess verdict on motion for new trial.

Y. & M. V. R. R. Co. v. Wallace, 43 So. 469; Mississippi Eastern Ry. Co. v. Wymond Cooperage Co., 46 So. 557; Sussman Wormser & Co. v. Sea Food Co., 94 So. 795; Case v. Y. & M. V. R. Co., 114 Miss. 21.

Fontaine & Adams, of Pontotoc, for appellee.

Appellee did not voluntarily get off appellant's train or know that she was not getting off at Pontotoc. The jury are the sole judges of the weight of the testimony and their finding thereon will not be disturbed.

The damages awarded appellee by the jury were not excessive. Appellee not only suffered physical pain in being put off the train without sufficient clothing on a bitter cold night alone at a station in the dark at which there were no lights, and no one to meet her, but on account of the exposure she contracted a severe cold which lasted her several weeks and necessarily caused considerable suffering both mental and physical and she sustained a shock to her nervous system from which she has not yet recovered; and causing her great physical and mental suffering and by depriving her of completing her course at Belhaven College at which she was at that time a student.

The jury fixed the damages and they could not be disturbed.

Bell v. Railroad Co., 76 Miss. 71.

OPINION

Smith, C. J.

This is an appeal from a judgment for one thousand five hundred dollars, damages alleged to have been sustained by the appellee because of being wrongfully put off of one of the appellant's trains on which she was a passenger.

The appellant's complaint is that (1) the verdict should have been directed in its favor, and (2) the damages awarded are excessive.

The appellee was a student at Belhaven College, Jackson Mississippi, and was returning to her home at Pontotoc for the Christmas holidays. She boarded a sleeping car on the appellant's road at Jackson at night and about daylight the next morning was awakened by the porter and told that Pontotoc would be the next stop. When the train stopped the porter carried her baggage from the car and deposited it on the ground. She was familiar with the station at Pontotoc and its surroundings, and while on the platform, or vestibule, of...