Illinois Cent. R. Co. v. Dodds

• Decision Date: 07 November 1910
• Docket Number: 14,724
• Citation: 53 So. 409,97 Miss. 865
• Court: Mississippi Supreme Court
• Parties: ILLINOIS CENTRAL RAILROAD COMPANY v. MARIAH DODDS

53 So. 409

97 Miss. 865

ILLINOIS CENTRAL RAILROAD COMPANY v. MARIAH DODDS

No. 14,724

Supreme Court of Mississippi

November 7, 1910

FROM the circuit court of Attala county, HON. GEORGE A. MCLEAN Judge.

Mrs Dodds, appellee, was plaintiff in the court below; the railroad company, appellant, was defendant there. From a judgment in plaintiff's favor the defendant appealed to the supreme court. The facts are fully stated in the opinion of the court.

Judgment reversed and cause remanded.

Mayes &amp Longstreet, for appellant.

The principle and the purpose of punitive damages are proper and salutary in cases warranting their application. But to grant instructions authorizing juries to return punitive damages, when the evidence demonstrates the entire lack of every element authorizing such action, is really to destroy the wisdom and the efficacy of a distinction between actual and punitive damages.

The court will observe that this case was based almost wholly on the effort to recover punitive damages. There were but two main instructions granted to plaintiff below (the third being merely as to the form of the verdict), and the court will observe that from the first line to the last, both instructions ignore wholly the idea and question of actual damages, but use all the phrases and expressions used in instructions for punitive damages only.

When we turn to the evidence, when we consider the testimony of all of the witnesses, both for plaintiff and defendant, we find at the worst, a case where a conductor of a passenger train might have overlooked the fact that there was a return portion of a ticket, and through hurry and inadvertence, the passenger was deprived of a property right to this extent.

But such action, through inadvertence and hurry, is not "wilful" or "wanton," in the sense of the law. It was purely negative, and in order to obtain punitive damages, there must appear voluntary and affirmative acts or wrongs or negligence.

Of course, the court will realize that we do not deny, under the proof in this case, the right of plaintiff to recover the $ 4.00 she paid for the return ticket. But we do deny that the evidence in this case in any wise justifies the grant of instructions warranting the award of punitive damages.

The attempted evidence to show that Maria Dodds caught a cold at Brookhaven, and is entitled to recover actual damages on that account, is entirely too remote and disconnected from the negligence complained of against appellant. There was no natural or proper connection between the one act, and its claimed consequences.

Teat & Niles, S. L. Dodd, and Flowers, Fletcher & Whitfield, for appellee.

It is well settled in this state that if the wrong was such as to evince recklessness, wilfulness or capriciousness, the offending party is liable for all actual though remote damages sustained. Silver v. Kent, 60 Miss. 124.

The worse feature of the case is that the company makes no explanation of its conduct and offers no excuse. It introduced only one witness, the agent at Brookhaven, and he knew nothing about it. He testified that the conductor said he remembered nothing about the transaction but of course this is purely hearsay and of no value in court. The conductor was not introduced; no accounting officer or person in charge of the records of the company appeared to give any evidence as to whether the ticket had been turned in. No explanation was offered as to why this plaintiff had not been given a return ticket. The facts were in the possession of the company and it declined to disclose them. In this attitude of the matter the case is perfectly controlled by Stirnberger v. Western Union Telegraph Co. , ante, 260, 52 So. 691, where it is said:

"Since appellee not only violated its duty to appellant by not delivering the telegram but offered no excuse at all therefor, the jury could hardly escape the conclusion that its conduct in the matter was so grossly careless as to indicate a total disregard of appellant's rights. In fact they would be warranted in believing that its failure to deliver was intentional; otherwise some excuse would have been given therefor."

Even without this consideration, the infliction of punitive damages was well warranted by the facts actually shown on the trial. Railroad Co. v. Weid, 93 Miss. 458; Railroad Co. v. Harper, 83 Miss. 564.

Compensatory damages are not limited to money losses. They include compensation for delays, annoyance, inconvenience and even mental pain and suffering. Hewlett v. Ragsdale, 68 Miss. 703; Bonelli v. Bowen, 70 Miss. 142; Railway v. Bloom, 71 Miss. 247; Telephone Co. v. Hobort, 89 Miss. 252; Telephone Co. v. Jackson, 48 So. 614; 3 Hutchinson on Carriers (3rd ed.) § 1424.

OPINION

MCLAIN, C.

The plaintiff obtained a judgment in the circuit court of Attala county for the sum of $ 175 against the defendant railroad company for damages, from which judgment the defendant railroad company appeals to this court.

Maria Dodds, the plaintiff, an old colored woman living at Kosciusko, Miss. on the 24th day of December, 1909, purchased a round-trip Christmas excursion ticket from defendant railroad company at Kosciusko to Brookhaven, Miss. and return. The object of her visit to Brookhaven was to pay a social visit and to spend Christmas with her friends, Le Roy Cooper and wife, colored, living at Brookhaven. The evidence in this case...