Haug v. Great N. Ry. Co.

• Decision Date: 28 April 1898
• Parties: HAUG v. GREAT NORTHERN RY. CO.
• Court: North Dakota Supreme Court

8 N.D. 23

77 N.W. 97

HAUG

v.GREAT NORTHERN RY. CO.

Supreme Court of North Dakota.

April 28, 1898.

Syllabus by the Court.

Defendant received plaintiff's husband as a passenger, but negligently carried him by his station. When the train reached the next station he was put off, against his wishes. He was in an imbecile and helpless condition from intoxication, and this was known to defendant's employés. It was late at night, and the weather was stormy and bitterly and dangerously cold. There were no proper accommodations for travelers at the place except defendant's depot, and shortly after entering the same to wait for a train to take him back to his destination, and while conducting himself quietly, he was ejected from the depot, and driven out into the night, with all its perils for a man in his condition. As a consequence, he died from exposure. Held, that the defendant was liable in damages to his widow for his death.

On Rehearing.

In an action brought under the statute by a widow to recover damages for the wrongful killing of her husband, where the complaint shows that the deceased left, surviving him, a widow and minor children of tender years, no specific allegations showing that such widow and children suffered pecuniary damages by the loss of such life are required.

Appeal from district court, Traill county; Charles A. Pollock, Judge.

Action by Olea C. Haug against the Great Northern Railway Company. Judgment for defendant on demurrer, and plaintiff appeals. Reversed.B. E. Ingwaldson, for appellant. W. E. Dodge, for respondent.

CORLISS, C. J.

It is difficult to discover from the complaint or the plaintiff's brief the precise legal theory on which she seeks to sustain this action. Our first impression was against the sufficiency of the complaint, which has been thus far successfully attacked by demurrer. But on a more careful analysis of its averments, and after eliminating therefrom all immaterial allegations which tend only to obscure the question of liability, we are convinced that the plaintiff has disclosed a state of facts which establish such a breach of duty on the part of the defendant as renders it responsible to her in damages. The general theory of the action is that defendant's violation of its duty to plaintiff's husband was the cause of his death, and that, therefore, it is bound, under sections 5974-5976, Rev. Codes, to make good to her the damage she has thereby suffered.

As the question arises on demurrer, we are concerned with nothing but the averments of the plaintiff's pleading. Do they state a cause of action? Stripped of all unnecessary verbiage, they are, in substance, as follows: That plaintiff is the widow of Jacob C. Haug; that he left, him surviving, the plaintiff and four minor children, who live with plaintiff; that defendant is a railroad corporation; that on the 2d day of February, 1895, defendant received plaintiff's husband as a passenger for transportation from Hillsboro to Alton station, in this state; that it negligently carried him by his point of destination; that he was in an imbecile condition from drink, and was helplessly intoxicated, to the knowledge of the defendant and its employés; that on reaching the station next south of Alton, i. e. the village of Kelso, the defendant put him off its train, against his wishes; that it was then late in the night, and was stormy and dangerously cold; that at this village there were no proper accommodations for travelers except defendant's depot; that shortly after plaintiff had entered such depot, and while he was quietly waiting for the next train to take him back to Alton, to the knowledge of defendant's agent, and while he was still in such imbecile condition from drink, and helplessly drunk, to the knowledge of such agent, such agent wantonly ejected him from the depot, and drove him out into the night; that it was dangerously and bitterly cold and stormy; that to compel a person, and especially one in his condition, to leave the waiting room, was inhuman, and was to evidently and apparently endanger his life; that plaintiff, so denied all shelter, was forced to and did attempt to walk back towards Hillsboro, the only place where he could find shelter, and that after hours of walking he finally succumbed to the cold, and died from exposure.

If these facts do not create a liability, it must be because the law deems human life cheap. In the forum of conscience, any human being would be instantly condemned who should treat a helpless drunkard as the deceased was treated by the defendant. The acts of defendant are none the less indefensible because they were performed, as all corporate acts must be performed, by agents. Does, then, the law lag so far behind ethics that conduct like this, which shocks the moral sense, is nevertheless sanctioned by legal principles? We are gratified to find that this question can be answered in the negative. The ground of liability in this case is the disregard by defendant of human life while in the performance of a legal right. When defendant negligently carried plaintiff past the station to which he was bound, it became liable to him for breach of its contract, and was under obligations to return him to that place without charge. But there is no connection between this negligent act and the death which thereafter resulted. Such act was not the proximate cause of his death. Had defendant carried him to a place of safety, and had he died from cold because of his intoxicated condition, no liability would have existed. Nor do we wish to be understood as holding that defendant was obliged to carry him without pay to any point to which he might express a desire to be transported. A traveler who buys a ticket at St. Paul for Minneapolis cannot, when negligently borne beyond his destination, demand that he shall be given a free ride to the Pacific coast. The railroad company has rendered itself liable for its breach of contract, but it has not incurred the obligation to carry the passenger any further than it would be obliged to carry any other passenger who has no ticket and refuses to pay his fare. The duty to carry the traveler, who has been taken past his station through the negligence of the carrier, to a place where his life will not be imperiled, may perhaps be greater than the duty to a willful trespasser, who is conducting himself with violence on the train. But, in a general sense, his right to continued transportation is no greater. He must either pay or leave the train when a point has been reached where he will not be exposed to great hazard. Plaintiff in this case cannot complain of the mere fact of the ejection of her husband from the train at Kelso. It is because of the peculiar circumstances surrounding that act, and which made it one necessarily dangerous to human life, when considered in the light of the subsequent conduct of defendant in forcibly removing him from its depot, that the plaintiff may justly hold defendant responsible for the terrible consequences which ensued. To have put him off the train where there were hotel accommodations would have been justifiable, because the defendant was not bound to carry him until he had become sober. Had he, after being ejected at such a place, been run over and killed in the street, or been frozen to death because of his state of intoxication, defendant could not be held responsible. But no one would contend that it could put him off from the train while in motion. And yet why is this so? The underlying principle applicable in such a case is that a railroad company must not, even when exercising the lawful right of removal, so act as to jeopardize human life. On the same principle, it could not set the passenger out in the midst of a storm on a cold night on the prairie or at a flag station. Neither would the law sanction its act in ejecting him under such circumstances at a station where there were no accommodations for travelers, and where the depot was closed. The defendant in this case owed to plaintiff's husband the duty of carrying him to a point where he, helpless from drink, would not be shelterless against the pitiless fury of a storm, on a bitterly cold night. Whether he was left on the lonely prairie between stations, or at a flag station where there was no depot, or at a village where he could not find shelter except at defendant's depot, which was closed to him or shelter in which was denied to him, the fact would in all the cases be the same,-that it had placed him, a man helplessly intoxicated, to its knowledge, and whom it had negligently carried beyond his destination, in a position from which death or great bodily injury was almost certain to result. The defendant could not expect that a stranger in a place, much less one in such a state of intoxication, would be permitted to enter a private house. It was chargeable with knowledge that his condition was such that he might not even have sufficient control of his faculties to make an effort to do so. It was therefore bound when, despite his protests, it removed him at Kelso, to see to it that the station agent was apprised of the facts, and directed to allow him shelter in its depot until he could be carried back to the place where the defendant should, in the exercise of reasonable care, have originally left him. We do not mean to intimate that it is incumbent upon a railroad company to keep its passenger stations open at all hours of the day and night. And if, under ordinary circumstances, the depot building is closed to the public except when it is necessary it should be open to accommodate the public, no one has any ground for complaint. Assuming that defendant has a right to close its depot as against the general public at the time plaintiff's husband was ejected therefrom, and assuming, further (but the complaint leaves this point in doubt), that what the defendant's agent did in removing her husband was only incidental to the act of...