Illinois Cent. R. Co. v. Moore

• Decision Date: 27 September 1901
• Court: Mississippi Supreme Court
• Parties: ILLINOIS CENTRAL RAILROAD COMPANY v. WILLIAM D. MOORE

31 So. 436

79 Miss. 766

ILLINOIS CENTRAL RAILROAD COMPANY v. WILLIAM D. MOORE

Supreme Court of Mississippi

September 27, 1901

FROM the circuit court of Lafayette county. HON. P. H. LOWERY Judge.

Suit by W. D. Moore against the Illinois Central Railroad Company to recover damages for his ejection from one of its trains. Moore lived at Taylors, a station on the appellant's road south of Oxford, and on February 26, 1900, desired to go to Memphis, Tenn. and to take advantage of excursion rates which the defendant company then had in force. He applied to the station agent at Taylors for a ticket, but was informed by him that he did not have the tickets. He then bought a ticket to Oxford, and when the train he was on reached Oxford he got off, and went into the depot, and bought a return trip ticket to Holly Springs, Miss. The ticket was bought hurriedly, and was in the following form: "Excursion ticket from station named in margin--Holly Springs to Oxford. Void after 2-5, 1900." The ticket agent at' Oxford testified that "on account of being in a hurry, and his hurrying me, it confused me, and I unintentionally wrote it '2-5,' instead of '3-5,'" as the date of the return part of the ticket, and that Moore took the ticket out of his hands while he was looking it over for the correction of errors. Moore used the ticket going north that morning, but on his return trip that night tendered the return part of the ticket to the conductor, who declined to take it, and told him he must pay his fare or get off. Moore explained to the conductor that it was the mistake of the ticket agent in dating the ticket, and that he had bought it that morning at Oxford, and offered to let the conductor retain his satchel as security for the fare if taken on to Oxford, and, if the ticket was not as represented, he would then pay the fare; but the conductor refused to do this, and Moore explained that he did not have the money to pay his fare. He was ejected from the car at the next station, the conductor's tone of voice being abrupt, and his manner firm, positive, and determined. The plaintiff's actual damages, according to his own testimony, did not exceed three dollars.

The jury were instructed for the plaintiff that, if they believed from the evidence that the conduct of the conductor was characterized by unnecessary rudeness and violence, or gross carelessness and willful wrong, they might find for plaintiff punitive damages, and refused defendant's request for an instruction to the effect that the plaintiff was only entitled to recover, if at all, damages to compensate him for his actual injuries, such as lost time, hotel bills traveling expenses, etc., and also defendant's request for instructions predicated of the conductor's right to eject plaintiff in a proper manner on the facts shown.

There was a verdict for plaintiff for $ 1,000 and judgment therefor. From that judgment defendant appealed.

Reversed and remanded.

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

The plaintiff held an unstamped ticket void on its face, which the conductor was under no obligation to honor, and the predicament into which the plaintiff had gotten himself was as much attributable to his fault as to that of the ticket agent, if the ticket agent is to blame at all.

It is undisputed that he got off the car during the short stop at Oxford of only one minute, and, with full knowledge of the situation, hurried the ticket agent and actually took the ticket out of his hands before he had completed its inspection, and before he had stamped it. Certainly, under these conditions, the plaintiff cannot be heard to say that the ticket agent was all at fault, and that he (plaintiff) was blameless.

Railroad ticket agents are but human, after all, and their conduct must be judged by human standards; and, under the conditions testified to in this case, the ticket agent certainly was not to be blamed if he made an error in filling out the blanks of a ticket under whip and spur, as he was in this case. The appellee was entirely to blame for these conditions, and he should bear the consequences.

That the conductor was not bound to honor this ticket is no longer an open question in this state. In the case of Mitchell v. Southern R. R. Co., 77 Miss. at p. 924, this court through Calhoon, Judge, has said:

"On the question of his right to sue for the ejection, we are clearly of the opinion that it does not exist. To hold that it does, involves the logical conclusion that the conductor must accept any oral statement of a passenger, even merely that he had lost his ticket, and thus putting conductors to the alternative as accepting as true all statements, or subjecting their companies to an action of damages. The Riley case, in 68 Miss. and the Holmes case, in 75 Miss. have carried the doctrine as far as it can be pressed within the danger line of injustice to railroad corporations. We approve both these cases, because in each of them the passenger had exhibited to the conductor evidence showing reasonably the statement to be true. Here there is nothing to support the oral statement but the mere production of the ticket, absolutely void on its face."

This is not only the law of this state, but the rule is in consonance with the overwhelming weight of authorities elsewhere. See Lexington, etc., R. R. Co. v. Lyons, Ky., Ct. of App., May 31, 1898; Willets v. Buffalo, etc., R. R. Co., 14 Barb., 585; Woods v. Metropolitan R. R. Co., 48 Mo. App., 125; Duke v. Great Western R. R. Co., 44 U. C. Q. B., 377; Louisville, etc., R. R. Co. v. Fleming, 14 Lea (Tenn.), 128; Craw ford v. Cincinnati, etc., R. R. Co., 36 Ohio State, 580; Jerome v. Smith, 48 Vermont, 231; Downes v. New York, etc., R. R. Co., 36 Conn. 287; Peabody v. Oregon R. R. Co., 21 Oregon, 121; McKay v. Ohio River R. R. Co., 34 West Va., 65; Shelton v. Lake Shore R. R. Co., 29 Ohio State, 214; Townsend v. N. Y. Central, etc., R. R. Co., 56 N.Y. 295; Beebe v. Ayres, 28 Barb., 275; Pease v. Del., etc., R. R. Co., 101 N.Y. 367; Frederick v. Marquette, etc., R. R. Co., 37 Mich. 342; Terre Haute, etc., R. R. Co. v. Vanattta, 74 Am. Dec., 96; Chicago, etc., R. R. Co. v. Griffin, 68 Ill. 499; Hall v. Memphis, etc., R. R. Co., 15 Fed. Report., 57; Yorton v. Milwaukee, etc., R. R. Co., 54 Wis. 234; Penn. R. R. Co. v. Cornell, 112 Ill. 295; Petrie v. Penn. R. R. Co., 42 New Jersey Law, 449; Poulin v. Can. Pac. R. R. Co., 52 F. 197; Rose v. Wilmington R. R. Co., 106 North Car., 168. See also 5 L R. A., pp. 819, 820, and 17 L. R. A., p. 802.

In Riley v. Railroad Co., 68 Miss. 765, and in Holmes v. Railroad Co., 75 Miss. 371, there were evidences offered corroborative of the statement of the passenger, which the court held were reasonable and sufficient to be acted upon by the conductor.

In the case at bar there is not one circumstance which tends in any way to corroborate the statement of the plaintiff. In fact everything contradicted his statement. The ticket on its face had expired, and, in addition to that, it was unstamped, nothing to show that it came from the railroad office in a lawful way, or when. There was no exhibition of any check, as in the Holmes case,...