Illinois Cent. R. Co. v. Harper

• Decision Date: 25 January 1904
• Citation: 35 So. 764,83 Miss. 560
• Court: Mississippi Supreme Court
• Parties: ILLINOIS CENTRAL RAILROAD COMPANY v. WINIFRED G. HARPER

35 So. 764

83 Miss. 560

ILLINOIS CENTRAL RAILROAD COMPANY v. WINIFRED G. HARPER

Supreme Court of Mississippi

January 25, 1904

FROM the circuit court of, second district, Yalobusha county. HON SAMUEL C. COOK, Judge.

Mrs Harper, appellee, was plaintiff, and the railroad company appellant, in the court below. From a judgment in plaintiff's favor, defendant appealed to the supreme court. The opinion states the facts.

Reversed and remanded.

Mayes & Longstreet and J. M. Dickinson, for appellant.

The evidence disclosed that the railroad company had a rule and regulation that passengers for local stations between Fulton and Grenada should go by the direct and shorter route.

The question is a novel one, but we invite attention of the court to the following authorities which support the reasonableness of the regulation of the company:

"It is a reasonable regulation for a railroad company operating a direct and a circuitous route between two points to require through passengers to go by the more direct route." Church v. Chicago, M. & S. P. R. R. Co., 6 S. Dak., 235, 60 N.W. 854, 26 L. R. A., 616.

"Where a carrier operates a direct and a circuitous route between two points, the failure of the carrier to notify a through passenger that he must go by the more direct route does not entitle the passenger to ride on the circuitous route." Ibid.

"The right of the company to make such a regulation can hardly be doubted in view of its reason and justice," etc. Deitrich v. Pa. R. R. Co., 10 Am. Rep., 711; Chicago & Alton R. R. v. Randolph, 5 Am. Rep., 60.

"When a passenger purchases a ticket, he only acquires the right to be carried according to the custom of the road. He does not acquire the right to insist that the company shall send him on a special train or out of the customary course of their road." Bennett v. N. Y. Central & Hudson River R. R. Co., 35 Am. Rep.

Anything that the agent at Princeton might have said is not material, so far as it would give plaintiff a right to disregard a well known regulation of the company, the conductor on the train from Princeton to Fulton had no authority to make any statement or representation to a passenger which would bind the company if the representation was to influence action as to some matter beyond the limit of his own run. Railroad Co. v. Harris, 81 Miss. 214.

If the agent at Princeton was mistaken, and if the conductor of the train from Princeton to Fulton was mistaken, still the evidence in tiffs case demonstrates, beyond question, that there was no willfulness or wantonness or reckless disregard of the rights of the passenger by any of these agents, that their faults, if any there were, were negative, and the rights of the passenger grew out of the lack of proper knowledge on the part of the employes and not from any positive acts of wrong or malice or willful disregard of her rights. And yet, on this phase of the record, the court instructed the jury that if they believed that these actions were willful and wanton, the jury might award punitive and exemplary damages. K. C. M. & B. R. R. Co. v. Riley, 68 Miss. 765; 81 Miss. 214; 67 Miss. 24; Barker v. N. Y., etc., R. Co., 24 N.Y. 499; Railroad Co. v. Statham, 42 Miss. 606; Gage v. Railroad Co., 75 Miss. 17; Wilson v. Railroad Co., 68 Miss. 9; McCullough v. Railroad Co., 33 S.W. 285; Railway v. Hendricks, 32 S.W. 42; Nunn v. Georgia R., 71 Ga. 710; Railroad Co. v. Kilgore, 32 Pa St., 294; Railroad Co. v. Statham, 42 Miss. 607; Railroad Co. v. Kendrick, 40 Miss. 374; Hutchinson on Carriers, secs. 6, 14; Thompson on Carriers of Passengers, 226, 227; Woods, Master and Servant, secs. 263, 267, 268; Tillery v. Bond, 38 F. ; Railroad Co. v. Carper, 112 Ind. 26; Burkett v. Lanata, 15 La. Ann., 330; Mobile & Montgomery R. R. Co. v. Ashcraft, 48 Ala. 33; Louisville R. R. v. Minogue, 90 Ky. 369; Railroad Co. v. Scurr, 59 Miss. 456; Railroad Co. v. Purnell, 69 Miss. 652; Railroad Co. v. Higgins, 64 Miss. 80.

Brewer & Creekmore, for appellee.

It is contended by counsel for appellant that where a railroad company sells a ticket between two given points and they have two routes between the points, one a longer route than the other, that the passenger must of necessity take the shorter route or otherwise the defendant may lawfully put him off of the train in the night time, and we respectfully submit that to establish the precedent that they might put off a lady passenger in the night time over her protest and against her will because the route on which she was traveling was a few miles longer than another route owned and controlled by the defendant between the same points, would be unreasonable, and especially would this be true where, as in this case, she took the route which she had been three times advised she could take by the defendant's employes in charge of its passenger business, one of them giving her such advice being the passenger depot agent from whom she purchased the ticket. In support of this view we cite the following authority: Robinson v. So. Pac. R. Co., 28 L. R. A., 773, 780. Church v. Chicago Railroad Co., 26 L. R. A., 616, relied upon by counsel for appellant, says that the passenger before taking the train should obtain the information as to which route to take from the agent from whom she purchased the ticket and should act upon this information, and this our client did.

OPINION

WHITFIELD, C. J.

Mrs. Harper lived at Henderson, Ky.; had been living there about 18 months. Prior to that time she had lived at Water Valley, Miss. On the 24th of July, 1901, desiring to make a visit to Water Valley, she bought a ticket from Henderson, Ky., to Water Valley, Miss. from the ticket agent at Henderson. She had lived at Grenada, Miss. before she lived at Water Valley, and her husband and herself desired that she should go by way of Grenada, because she had acquaintances there. She says that she preferred that route, because she did not know where she would be delayed on the direct route by way of Jackson, Tenn., in the night time, and her husband and herself desired that she should go by way of Memphis, and stop over at Grenada. The agent told her that there was no difference in the price of tickets, and she took the Memphis route. The defendant company had two routes: One from Henderson, via Jackson, Tenn., to Water Valley, called the direct route; but the local train ran over this route. The other route was from Henderson, Ky., via Princeton, Ky., to Memphis, Tenn., and Grenada, Miss. Over this the fast train ran. When Mrs. Harper got to Princeton, Ky., she interviewed the ticket agent of the defendant company there, and he told her to take the Memphis train--positively told her not to take the other train. She accordingly took the Memphis train at Princeton. When the conductor of the train came around for tickets, she asked him if she was all right--if she could go by way of Memphis. He told her that certainly she could go that way, and honored her ticket, and carried her to Brighton, Tenn., within one-half hour's run of Memphis. She was much nearer Water Valley at Brighton, going via Memphis, than she would have been returning from Brighton to Fulton, Ky., and thence going to Water Valley. But at Brighton another conductor refused to pass her any further on that ticket; saying that the ticket was for the other route, and not good on that route, and that she would have to get off. It was then about half past eight at night. Mrs. Harper fully explained to him all that had passed between her and the two ticket agents and the conductor. On this point she says: "I told him the man had sold me a ticket for that route, and all of the railroad officials had instructed me to go on that way, and that I could not see why I could not; that I would get to Water Valley at 6:30 in the morning, and the other way would put me at Water Valley the day after; and that I had bought the ticket for that route. He put me off against my will; just willfully put me off. Of course, he did not take me bodily and put me off, but he told me I had to do it, and, of course, I did it. I went back to Fulton and spent the night." She further testifies that he positively refused to accept any explanation from her. She got to Fulton on the back train about ten o'clock that night. She would have been in Memphis in another hour on the route she was on. She stayed in the hotel at Fulton until five o'clock the next morning. She knew no person at Brighton, Tenn., and stayed at the depot there about twenty minutes, until the train going to Fulton came along. This was an accommodation passenger train. At Fulton, Ky., the ticket agent, according to her testimony, which the jury believed, pointed out to her the train which he said was going to Water Valley, and also the very coach on the train which she should take to go to Water Valley. After the train had started, the conductor of this train which she was on told her she was on the wrong train, but that he would put her on the right train directly. She says that by this time she was almost desperate, that she was really sick from anxiety and worry, and that she notified the conductor that she was thus sick from anxiety and worry. She had really gotten on the car that went to Nashville, Tenn., from Martin, Tenn. The conductor failed to

keep his promise to put her in the right coach and she was about to be carried to Nashville, Tenn., from Martin; but she pulled the bell rope and stopped that train, and got off at Martin, and found herself about fifty yards from the train going to Water Valley, but it was just pulling out, and thus she got left, so far as that train was concerned. She went to a hotel so sick that she could not go to the dinner table, and dinner was served in her room. She stayed at Martin all day,...