Hill v. Alabama & V. Ry. Co.

• Citation: 31 So. 198,79 Miss. 587
• Parties: THOS. R. HILL v. ALABAMA & VICKSBURG RAILWAY COMPANY
• Decision Date: 20 January 1902
• Court: Mississippi Supreme Court

31 So. 198

79 Miss. 587

THOS. R. HILL v. ALABAMA & VICKSBURG RAILWAY COMPANY

Supreme Court of Mississippi

January 20, 1902

FROM the circuit court of, first district, Hinds county. HON ROBERT POWELL, Judge.

Hill appellant, was plaintiff in the court below; the railway company was defendant there. The suit was for personal injuries; the plaintiff claimed, and he and his witnesses testified, that he was a passenger on defendant's freight train, riding in a caboose, from Jackson to Vicksburg, on March 14, 1898; that nothing whatever occurred to or on the train out of the ordinary at Jackson, but when the train reached Bovina, in Warren county, a violent collision--sufficiently violent to break the cars--occurred between the caboose and some other cars, by which he was seriously, painfully, and permanently injured, rendered unconscious, wholly incapacitated for business, and that he has remained largely so ever since; that as a result of his injuries his eyesight has been greatly impaired, his hair become prematurely gray, eruptions and discolorations appeared all over his body, and that he had only found relief from these cutaneous ailments a short time before the trial after many months stay at the Hot Springs in Arkansas. He admitted, however, that he had made but one trip from Jackson to Vicksburg within three months, either before or after the date he received his injuries. That upon reaching Vicksburg (and he was carried on there by the same train), he made his way, consciousness being partly restored, to the Piazza Hotel, where he registered on arrival in the afternoon as a guest.

The defendant's testimony showed that plaintiff was not a passenger on its freight train on the 14th of March at all that no accident of any kind occurred at Bovina or elsewhere on that day; that plaintiff was a passenger on its freight train, boarding the same at Jackson for Vicksburg, on the 15th of March; that while the train was doing some switching in the yards at Jackson, before leaving the station plaintiff was standing on the floor of the caboose looking out at the back door, and by the stoppage of the car plaintiff was caused to loose his balance, stumbled over his own valise, which he had placed in the middle of the floor and fell against a stove, inflicting a very slight scalp wound, so insignificant that he protested against the conductor making a report of it to the company, claiming that it was a mere trifle; went on to Vicksburg without trouble or complaint, conversing with the train crew and a fellow passenger touching war incidents, and elicited from them information in regard to the battlefields at Baker's Creek and Champion Hill, near or through both of which the railway passed. It was further shown by the defendant's evidence that plaintiff did not register at the Piazza Hotel, Vicksburg, on the afternoon of March 14, 1898, but did so register on the afternoon of the 15th of that month. The plaintiff's demand was for $ 30,000; the jury gave him a verdict for $ 100, and, judgment having been entered accordingly, he appealed to the supreme court.

Affirmed.

Green & Green, for appellant.

The court will perceive that appellant asked only one instruction, and that was on the proper measure of damages, and it will also see the very obvious reason thereof that the railroad company tried to prove "an alibi." Appellant contended that the injury occurred at Bovina, the railroad that it occurred in Jackson. The determination of the locus of the injury was conclusive of the question of liability. If it occurred in Jackson, the company could in no way be responsible; if at Bovina, the only question was the measure of damages, and hence our instruction. This case involves the question (1) whether or not a court will set aside a verdict for being inadequate, and (2) under what circumstances it will exercise that power.

The jury found for the plaintiff, and by this verdict established beyond a shadow of doubt that the injury occurred not in Jackson, but in Bovina; that all of defendant's testimony as to the extent of the injury is without foundation, for none of them testified as to the extent of the injury that occurred in Bovina, except Dr. Wilson, and the jury discredited him.

The jury has conclusively established the falsity of the evidence of the railroad witnesses, and that they did not see what they said they saw; that Hill was not as he said he was. Appellant has shown that the actual damages resulting to him are (1) over a thousand dollars paid out as doctor's bill; (2) the loss of a position in which he made $ 3,500 to $ 4,000 a year, and every other position that he could obtain, until, on the first of June last, he lost the last job at $ 75 per month, and since then has been unable to do anything; (3) the great pain and suffering, the loss of a tooth, the ruining of an eye, and (4) the total inability to work any more; (5) and the permanent injury to his health. And for all this the jury saw fit to award him the paltry sum of $ 100.

As aptly put in the case of Moseley v. Jamison, 68 Miss. 336: "An appeal to the courts of the country which is met by a verdict declaring that the plaintiff's right to recovery is clear, but declining to give adequate compensatory damages, has certainly not met that response which justice requires. The aggrieved suitor has asked for and shown that he was entitled to receive bread, but has been given a stone. He has made out his right to recover for the wrong done him, and he has a right to recover for the wrong done him, and he has a right to demand and expect adequate compensatory damages, if nothing more. He has furnished the jury with a certain standard for estimating his damages, and the jury is not to be permitted wantonly and defiantly to disregard this certain standard in arriving at its conclusion. The right to adequate compensation is as fixed as the right to recover itself." Railroad Co. v. Martin, 29 So. 829; De La Torre v. Railway Co., 48 A.D. 127; Benton v. Collins, 47 L. R. A., 33; Chouquelte v. Railway Co., 152 Mo. 257; McNeil v. Lyons, 20 R. I., 672; Phillips v. Railway Co., 4 Q. B. Div., 406; Henderson v. Ry. Co., 52 Minn. 479; Morrissey v. Ry. Co., 30 A.D. 424; Brown v. Foster, 1 App. Div., 578; 47 L. R. A., 46, 47; Boyd v. Brown, 17 Pick., 461; Winn v. Columbian Ins. Co., 12 Pick., 288; Sprague v. Bailey, 19 Pick., 442; Robbins v. Townsend, 20 Pick., 351; Hamilton v. Neilson, 22 Mont. 540; Benton v. Collins, 125 N.C. 90; Strother v. Ry. Co., 123 N.C. 197; Mining Co. v. Smelting Co., 122 N.C. 542; Rettenhouse v. Ry. Co., 120 N.C. 544; Nathan v. Railway Co., 118 N.C. 1066; Picket v. Railroad, 117 N.C. 616; Blackburn v. Insurance Co., 116 N.C. 821; Tillett v. Railroad, 115 N.C. 662; Jones v. Swepson, 94 N.C. 700; Bowen v. Railroad, 91 N.C. 199; Price v. Deal, 90 N.C. 290; Jones v. Mial, 89 N.C. 89; Lindley v. Railroad, 88 N.C. 547; Crawford v. Mfg. Co., Ibid, 554; Roberts v. Railroad Co., Ibid, 560; Allen v. Baker, 86 N.C. 91; Burton v. Railroad, 84 N.C. 192; Meroney v. McIntyre, 82 N.C. 103; Holmes v. Godwin, 71 N.C. 306; Key v. Allen, 7 N.C. 523; Barnes v. Brown, 69 N.C. 439; Grant v. Little, 126 N.C. 388; Sedgwick on Damages, sec. 1322, p. 648; McNeil v. Lyons, 20 R. I., 671; Ramsdell v. Clark, 20 Mont. 106; Lake v. Bender, 18 Nev. 367; Price v. Harris, 10 Bing., 331; 25 Eng. Com. Law, 155; Zaleski v. Clark, 45 Conn. 404; Danson v. Wisner, 11 Iowa 8; Patton v. Springfield, 99 Mass. 635; Coulter v. N.Y. 19 Wend., 119; Code 1892, § 4345; Code 1892, § 4353; Broom's Legal Maxims (8th ed.), 331, 333; Broom's Legal Maxims (8th ed.), 326.

McWillie & Thompson, for appellee.

The case, as one of fact, is somewhat peculiar. The plaintiff took passage on a freight train of the defendant, intending to go from Jackson to Vicksburg, and while in the caboose received injuries.

He testified that he was injured on March 14, 1898, and claims that the accident occurred at Bovina. The defendant's evidence shows that the man was injured on March 15, and that he received his injuries at Jackson. Confessedly Hill was not a passenger from Jackson to Vicksburg on both of said days, and confessedly he was not injured twice. The testimony, therefore, presented two very sharp issues, aside from the extent of the damages and the manner in which it was inflicted, and these two issues were: First, was the plaintiff injured on March 14, 1898, or was he injured on March 15, 1898, and, second, where was he injured? Did he receive the blows and knockdown at Bovina or at Jackson?

The record discloses the fact that for a whole day in the progress of the trial the plaintiff insisted and swore, over and over again, that he was injured on March 14, and that the place was Bovina.

The defendant's witnesses averred that he was injured on the 15th of March, and that the place was Jackson.

The court will perceive that the matter of date was quite material because the members of the freight train crew on the 14th were not of the crew on the 15th, and it would have been amusing to your Honors had you witnessed the progress of this trial, to see the merriment which it afforded plaintiff's counsel to claim that the litigants were passing each other on sidetracks, and they were in great eclat on the idea that the plaintiff was trying one case and the railway company another. But it happened that early in his testimony, Hill, the plaintiff, testified that he made but one trip in the month of March, and that as soon as he got to Vicksburg he went to the Piazza Hotel and registered as a guest.

During the night between the first day of the trial and the morning of the second one, the defendant produced a witness from Vicksburg, who was the clerk of the Piazza Hotel, at which Hill claimed to have registered, and...