Illinois Cent. R. Co. v. Ramsay

• Decision Date: 14 April 1930
• Docket Number: 28594
• Citation: Illinois Cent. R. Co. v. Ramsay, 127 So. 725, 157 Miss. 83 (Miss. 1930)
• Court: Mississippi Supreme Court
• Parties: ILLINOIS CENT. R. CO. v. RAMSAY

127 So. 725

157 Miss. 83

ILLINOIS CENT. R. CO. v. RAMSAY

No. 28594

Supreme Court of Mississippi

April 14, 1930

Division B

1 DAMAGES. Punitive damages. When authorized.

To authorize punitive damages, wrongful act must be intentional or result from gross disregard of person's rights amounting to willfulness.

2 CARRIERS. Passengers. Carried beyond destination. Punitive damages. Jury question.

In action by passenger against carrier carrying her beyond destination, question of punitive damages held properly submitted to jury. The evidence on behalf of plaintiff was to effect that, before reaching her destination, she notified pullman porter that she held ticket for S. and that he went forward and notified conductor, but that conductor was at time taking up tickets of passengers, and leisurely worked his way to where paintiff was, and that plaintiff demanded of conductor that he stop train and let her off at S., but that he declined to do so, and carried her and her grandson to the next station.

HON. GREEK L. RICE, Judge.

APPEAL from circuit court of Tate county HON. GREEK L. RICE, Judge.

Action by Mrs. Amelia Mitchell Ramsay against the Illinois Central Railroad Company. From a judgment for plaintiff, defendant appeals. Affirmed.

Affirmed.

May, Sanders, McLaurin & Byrd, of Jackson, and Chas. N. Burch, of Memphis, Tenn., for appellant.

It is no doubt true that in proper cases punitive damages may be allowed for breach of a contract, but appellant submits that the true rule is that such breach alone will not justify the inflicting of punitive damages, but that the wilfulness or gross carelessness must be so great as to amount to a separate tort before punitive damages can be allowed.

C. St. L. & N. O. R. R. Co. v. Scurr, 59 Miss. 456; Miss. & Tenn. R. R. Co. v. H. I. Gill, 66 Miss. 39; G. & S. I. R. R. Co. v. Mrs. Laura Cole, 101 Miss. 411; Lynchard v. Y. & M. V. R. R. Co., 107 Miss. 46; Jackson Light & Traction Co. v. Taylor, 112 Miss. 60; M. & O. R. R. Co. v. Farrier, 115 Miss. 96; N. O. & N.E. R. R. Co. v. Martin, 140 Miss. 410.

J. F. Dean, of Senatobia, for appellee.

The rule is so universal that punitive damages are allowed for acts that are wilful or so reckless as to amount to wilfulness that appellee will not cite authorities to support the proposition.

Under the evidence in this case the conductor virtually kidnapped Mrs. Ramsey and her grandson and held them prisoners against their will, until his train reached Sardis when he liberated them and dismissed them with their return fare to Senatobia paid.

Argued orally by J. L. Byrd, for appellant, and by J. F. Dean, for appellee.

OPINION

Anderson, J.

Appellee brought this action against appellant in the circuit court of Tate county to recover actual and punitive damages for the negligence of appellant in carrying her beyond Senatobia in this state, her destination, while she was traveling on a through ticket from New York City, by way of Detroit and Chicago. There was a verdict and judgment for one dollar and fifty cents actual damages, and two hundred dollars punitive damages, and from that judgment appellant prosecutes this appeal.

The only question in the case is whether the court erred in submitting to the jury the question of punitive damages. Appellant admits liability to the appellee for the actual damages suffered by her because of being carried beyond her destination, but denies liability for punitive damages.

Appellee purchased a ticket for herself and her grandson, Dick Thomas, from New York City to Senatobia, by way of Detroit, Chicago, and Memphis; she and her grandson making the trip together. From Chicago south they traveled on what is known as appellant's fast train No. 3, which was due at Senatobia at ten-eighteen A. M. Senatobia is not a regular stop for this train, but it does stop there for all passengers from the north going through Memphis to points south of that city. Appellant admits that appellee and her grandson were entitled to have the train on which they were traveling stop at Senatobia. Sardis is fourteen miles south of Senatobia, on appellant's Memphis-New Orleans line, on which appellee and her grandson were traveling. The distance from Memphis to Senatobia is fifty miles; the time of appellant's train No. 3 between Memphis and Senatobia is an hour and ten minutes, and twenty minutes between Senatobia and Sardis.

On the trial appellee and her grandson testified that they both realized, before they reached Senatobia, that their train was not going to stop at that place, and at the public gin something like four or five hundred yards north of the station, the grandson rang for the Pullman porter, who promptly responded; that they notified the pullman...