Ill. Cent. R.R. Co. v. Sutton

• Decision Date: 31 January 1867
• Citation: 42 Ill. 438,92 Am.Dec. 81,1867 WL 4949
• Parties: ILLINOIS CENTRAL RAILROAD COMPANYv.JOSEPH J. SUTTON.
• Court: Illinois Supreme Court

42 Ill. 438

1867 WL 4949 (Ill.)

92 Am.Dec. 81

ILLINOIS CENTRAL RAILROAD COMPANY

v.JOSEPH J. SUTTON.

Supreme Court of Illinois.

January Term, 1867.

APPEAL from the Circuit Court of Champaign county; the Hon. O. L. DAVIS, Judge, presiding.

This was an action of trespass on the case, instituted by the appellee, in the court below, against the appellant, as a common carrier, for ejecting the appellee, who was a passenger, from the cars of the appellant.

Damages claimed $10,000. Plea, the general issue.

At the October Term, 1866, of the Champaign Circuit Court, the cause was tried before a jury, who found the defendant guilty, and assessed the plaintiff's damages at $470, besides the costs of suits. A motion for a new trial was made, which the court overruled, and thereupon rendered judgment upon the verdict. Whereupon the defendant prayed an appeal to this court. The points in the case upon which error is assigned are fully stated in the opinion of the court.

Mr. W. D. SOMERS, for the appellant.

Mr. E. S. TERRY, for the appellee. Mr. JUSTICE LAWRENCE delivered the opinion of the Court:

This case, in its essential features, is like that of the Chicago & Alton R. R. v. Flagg, decided at the present term.^a1 We held, in that case, when a railway company carries passengers in a car attached to a freight train, and adopts a regulation requiring tickets to be purchased before entering the train, and a passenger disregards the rule, he can only be expelled from the train at a regular station. It is urged that this provision of the statute, forbidding passengers to be elsewhere expelled, applies only to the case of refusal to pay the fare and not to a violation of any other reasonable rule. But the willful neglect to buy a ticket at the time and place required by the rules, and the refusal to pay the fare, are substantially the same offense against the rights of the road, and the former can be visited by no heavier penalty than the latter. But in this case, as in the other above referred to, there was no satisfactory proof that the plaintiff was cognizant of the rule, and he offered to pay his fare to the conductor, who refused to receive it, and compelled him to leave the train at some distance from a station. He was, indeed, informed of the rule just before the train started, and then sought to buy a ticket, but the office was closed. Under these circumstances he was clearly entitled to his action.

He claims to have been suffering from disease, and that it was aggravated by the walk incident to his expulsion from the cars. To prove this, a physician was examined, who testified he visited the plaintiff and found him suffering much pain; that he had been attending him for two years, and had cautioned him against severe exercise, and that the plaintiff informed him his present condition was caused by overexertion in walking. The defendant moved the court to exclude so much of this evidence as related to what the plaintiff said of the cause of his condition. This the court refused to do, and in this decision there is error. A physician, when asked to give his opinion as to the cause of a patient's condition at a particular time, must necessarily, in forming his opinion, be, to some extent,...