Hipps v. Southern Rt

• Decision Date: 21 May 1919
• Docket Number: (No. 474.)
• Citation: 99 S.E. 335
• Court: North Carolina Supreme Court
• Parties: HIPPS et al. v. SOUTHERN RT.

99 S.E. 335

HIPPS et al.

v.SOUTHERN RT.

(No. 474.)

Supreme Court of North Carolina.

May 21, 1919.

Appeal from Superior Court, Cabarrus County; Warding, Judge.

Action by Jennie Hipps and husband against the Southern Railway Company. Judgment for plaintiffs, and defendant appeals. No error.

This action was brought by the plaintiffs to recover damages alleged to have been suffered by the feme plaintiff on account of the negligence of the defendant in failing to have its waiting room at Wellford properly heated.

On January 19, 1916, after having spent some weeks visiting relatives near Wellford, S. C, the feme plaintiff purchased tickets of the defendant at Wellford, S. C., for transportation to Concord, N. C. She offered evidence tending to prove: That the weather was very cold. That she and her three children were brought to the station at Wellford, a distance of four miles, in a wagon. That she arrived there at about 2 p. m., intending to take train No. 12, which would carry her to Concord, N. C. That train No. 12 was two hours or more late. That she and her children went into the waiting room. There was no Are there. They remained in this waiting room 20 or 30 minutes, and were taken into the operator's room, where there was a fire, and where she remained about 30 minutes until Mr. Hipp, her brother-in-law, had to leave so that he could get home before night. That when her brother-in-law left the room she took her children and left also, and went again into the waiting room, where there was no fire, and where she had been before and found no fire. That she remained in this room until No. 12 came, some 2 hours later. That she then boarded the train and went to Concord, a distance of something like 80 or 100 miles, without ever getting warm, and that she was sick for about two weeks.

The plaintiff testified that she left the operator's room when her brother-in-law started home, because it was a small crowded place and there were four or five negroes in there; also, that the agent of the defendant was notified that there was no fire in the waiting room.

There was a verdict and judgment in favor of the plaintiffs, and defendant appealed, assigning as errors relied on:

(1) That the court erred in stating to the jury: "So it does not follow that every time a man is injured or a woman is injured (as in this case), if there is any injury, that he or she has the right to call on somebody to punish them for it." The exception being to the use of the words "as in this case."

(2) That the court erred in charging the jury: "Was the negligent act of the defendant to furnish heat for the plaintiff "at its railroad station at Wellford, S.C., if you find there was a negligent act, was that the direct and natural flowing cause of the plaintiff's injury which she has alleged (and which there was evidence tending to show she has suffered)?"

(3) That the court erred in charging the jury: "Was the failure down there the cause of her sickness, her ill health; did it bring it about? Or if it did not bring it about originally, did it accentuate or accelerate it or increase it or exaggerate it?"

(4) That the court erred in charging the jury: "It was the duty of the railroad company to maintain separate waiting rooms, and if the railroad company permitted the white waiting room to be in such condition there from cold or otherwise so that it could not be occupied with reasonable safety, with reasonable comfort to its passengers, and by reason of that the plaintiff had to go out of that room and go into another room where there were colored men, that was negligence."

(5) That the court erred in charging the jury: "If you find that the railroad company negligently failed to provide for her there so that she had to withdraw from that room and go into another room occupied by colored people, cither as employes or passengers, then the court charges you, gentlemen of the jury, that would be negligence."

(6) That the court erred in charging the jury: "If the plaintiff has failed to satisfy you that the negligence of the defendant was the proximate cause of the injury, then you would answer the issue, 'No.' "

(7) That the court erred in charging the jury: "She has sustained, by reason of the (defenda...