I. & G. N. R'Y Co. v. Hassell

• Decision Date: 21 October 1884
• Docket Number: Case No. 1699.
• Citation: 62 Tex. 256
• Parties: I. & G. N. R'Y CO. v. C. R. HASSELL.
• Court: Texas Supreme Court

62 Tex. 256

I. & G. N. R'Y CO.

v.C. R. HASSELL.

Case No. 1699.

Supreme Court of Texas.

Oct. 21, 1884.

APPEAL from Anderson. Tried below before the Hon. Peyton Edwards.

Suit by C. R. Hassell against the International & Great Northern Railroad Company for damages for personal injuries received in being wrong?? ully ejected from a passenger train, near Palestine. The appellant set up as a defense that it was not guilty as charged; that appellee was wrongfully on the train, and that he contributed to or caused the injury received. The case was tried on the 3d day of December 1883, and resulted in a verdict and judgment for appellee for $600.

The important facts are stated in the opinion.

John Young Gooch, for appellant, cited: Beauchamp v. I. & G. N. R'y Co., 56 Tex., 249; Thompson's Carrier of Passengers, p. 66; Pittsburg, etc., R. R. Co. v. Nuzum, 50 Ind., 141;Barker v. New York R. Co., 24 N. Y., 599; Wade on Notice, sec. 8; Heerwaes v. Ellsworth, 64 N. Y., 159; G., H. & S. A. R'y Co. v. Bracken, 59 Tex., 73;59 Tex., 331;51 Tex., 189;50 Tex., 254;49 Tex., 573;59 Tex., 373; R. R. Co. v. Aspell, 23 Pa. St., 147; 4 Am. and Eng. R. R. Cases, 574.

Word & Glenn, for appellee.

STAYTON, ASSOCIATE JUSTICE.

In so far as it was necessary to do so, the charge of the court below clearly informed the jury as to the rights of the respective parties on each ground of action embraced in the petition.

One ground of action was the failure of the appellant to carry the appellee from Jacksonville to Elkhart on the train on which he started from the former place.

The other ground of action was that the conductor ejected the appellee from the train on which he left Jacksonville, in an improper manner, from which he alleged injury.

Under the uncontroverted facts presented by the record it does not become necessary to determine whether the contract made between the appellee and the person who was acting as ticket agent in the appellant's office at Jacksonville was binding on the appellant or not. To that person the cost of passage to Elkhart was paid, and the appellee received in good faith a ticket from him, which on its face was good, and entitled him to be carried from Jacksonville to Elkhart. After paying for and receiving a ticket, bearing the signature of the proper officer of the company, in good faith he entered the car of the appellant, believing, as he had been told by the person who sold him the ticket, that on that train he could go to Elkhart.

After he entered the train and the journey began, the conductor recognized the validity of the ticket which he held, by receiving it as an evidence that the holder of it was entitled to and had commenced a journey paid for and evidenced by it. These facts made the appellee a passenger on the appellant's train, and not a mere intruder or trespasser. Such would have been his character if he had held no ticket at all, if he entered the car of the appellant in good faith intending to make the journey and to pay his passage.

The court instructed the jury, among other matters, as follows: “The proof shows that the railroad company runs two daily trains between points named in plaintiff's ticket, and the regulation that one of these trains shall not stop at all stations is a reasonable regulation and one they had a right to make, and a passenger who travels on said road with notice of such regulation cannot get on a through train and demand to be carried to a point at which said through train does not stop, even if he has a ticket to such point, unless he goes on the train by direction of the railroad's agents. If the person who acted as agent, and sold the ticket, directed the plaintiff to get on the through train, he had the right to get on said train and travel upon it; but if, after getting on, he was, at a regular station, notified that the train would not stop at Elkhart, it was his duty then to get off and take the proper train; for if the railroad agent at Jacksonville made a mistake, the railroad had a right to correct the mistake at any regular stopping station for that train. If, then, he was informed at Palestine of the mistake, it was his duty to get off, and if he did not do so, the conductor had a right to put him off in a proper manner.”

There was no question made as to the right of appellee to a passage on the other train, from Jacksonville to Elkhart, on the ticket which he held,--that right was recognized.

Under the facts of the case we believe that the charge of the court correctly presented the law of the case; and that in so far as it made the right of the appellee, in any respect, to depend upon the act of the person who was in the ticket office of appellant, assuming to discharge the duties of its agent, and from whom he purchased the ticket on which he was traveling, even...