Illinois Cent. Ry. Co. v. Reid

• Decision Date: 27 April 1908
• Docket Number: 12,880
• Citation: 46 So. 146,93 Miss. 458
• Court: Mississippi Supreme Court
• Parties: ILLINOIS CENTRAL RAILROAD COMPANY v. EDWARD W. REID

46 So. 146

93 Miss. 458

ILLINOIS CENTRAL RAILROAD COMPANY v. EDWARD W. REID

No. 12,880

Supreme Court of Mississippi

April 27, 1908

FROM the circuit court of Pike county, HON. MOYSE H. WILKINSON Judge.

Reid 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 stated in the opinion of the court.

Judgment affirmed.

Mayes &amp Longstreet, for appellant.

We have a number of cases in our own reports where this court has held that the jury was not warranted in inflicting punitive damages, in which the facts showing malice and oppression in much stronger terms than they are suggested in the case at bar, and we are unable to account for the action of the court in giving instruction No. 2 for the plaintiff.

In Railroad Company v. Moore, 79 Miss. 766, 31 So. 436, the passenger was ejected from the train and "the conductor's tone of voice was abrupt, his manner firm positive and determined," and it was held that punitive damages were not allowable, although the railroad ticket agent had made a mistake in selling the ticket, which was the occasion of the ejection from the train. The conductor was held in that case free from fault in executing the orders of the company, and that his belligerent tone of voice was not sufficient to amount to the wilfulness, wantonness and oppression that warranted the infliction of punitive damages.

In Vicksburg, etc., R. Co. v. Marlett, 78 Miss. 872, 29 So. 62, a passenger was ejected through mistake of the servant of the company in failing to punch his transfer ticket, and in that case the plaintiff said of the conductor's conduct, as Reid said here, and as testified in the case supra: "I considered him very insulting," the court said: "It was not for the plaintiff to determine whether he was insulting or not, but for the jury."

The court further held in that case, that the conductor did right in executing the order of his master in putting a man off the train under the circumstances; that the mistake was that of agent and not of the conductor.

In Yazoo, etc., R. Co. v. Rodgers, 80 Miss. 200, 31 So. 581, the agent, who sold the ticket, told Rodgers that the ticket would be good on any passenger train returning. On his return, he and others testified that he was on a train not scheduled to stop at Eggremont, and told the conductor that his wife was sick, as a reason for begging him to stop the train for him, and that the conductor replied "Damn your wife, I cannot take you." The court said: "The record discloses that Rodgers ticket was not good on Howard's train, and that Howard was justified in refusing him passage on that train and that there was no ground in the evidence for the imposition of exemplary or punitive damages." See also Cumberland T. & T. Co. v. Baker, 85 Miss. 486, 37 South, 1012; Illinois, etc., R. Co. v. Marlett, 75 Miss. 956, 23 So. 583; Illinois, etc. R. Co. v. Dorrah, 65 Miss. 14, 3 So. 36; Mitchell v. Southern R. Co., 77 Miss. 917, 27 So. 834. In the case at bar the plaintiff testified that he considered the conduct of the conductor "very discourteous," and when asked the reason why he considered him "discourteous" the plaintiff replied: "Because he would not let me have a word to say or would not listen to me."

The conductor is not shown to have uttered an impolite or improper word, or done anything in the world except to refuse to take the time from his business to argue a question with the passenger which so far as he was concerned would have been an utter waste of time, for he repeatedly informed the passenger that he had no power to stop that train.

R. N. & H. B. Miller, on same side.

The announcements in the case of Railroad Co. v. Harper, 83 Miss. 564, 35 So. 764, have no sort of application to the case at bar. In that case the lady who was travelling from Henderson, Kentucky, to Water Valley, Mississippi, wanted to go by a particular route. The company had two routes by which she could go and by the gross carelessness and misdirection of the several agents and conductors, she was put entirely out of her route, and was put off the train in the night time in a strange community, and suffered a great many delays and inconveniences, was made sick by the anxiety and worry she underwent, all the result, as above stated, of the gross carelessness of the conductors and agents of the company; and therefore the court properly held that such putting her off of the train "under the circumstances detailed in evidence at night" entitled her to punitive damages.

In the Riley case, 68 Miss. 769, 9 So. 443, the court held that the mistake of the conductor who tore off the wrong end of the return ticket and the fact that the passenger had this wrong end in his possession were sufficient to have informed the conductor of the truth of the passenger's claim as to the circumstances. This is all that was decided in that case. In other words, that there was enough of the ticket in the passenger's possession to corroborate the truth of his explanations of the conductor who put him off.

Neither of these cases have any bearing upon the case at bar; the question here is, was the conduct of the conductor here sufficient to make that wantoness and wilfullness which authorizes the infliction of punitive damages?

Let it be remembered that Reid's own evidence shows that he knew that train No. 3 was not scheduled to stop regularly at Magnolia, and therefore if it be true that the agent told him, when he bought the ticket, that it would stop for him, he was not thereby misled, because he knew that it did not regularly stop. He could not claim to have been misled by the ticket agent when he knew better.

The question of whether or not punitive damages may be inflicted, depends upon the facts of each particular case. In the case at bar Reid was compelled to get off one train and wait thirty minutes to get another train which took him safely home; he suffered no other loss under high Heaven than this delay of thirty minutes.

He cannot have punitive damages because the conductor refused to listen to his explanation, because he had nothing to explain. If the conductor had listened and told him that the agent was mistaken it wouldn't have altered the conductor's right to stop the train or his power under the rules and regulations of the company to do it.

The court will note that this case is to be easily differentiated from the case of Gortikov v. Illinois, etc., R. Co., 90 Miss. 787, 45 So. 363. In that case the conductor for the company wilfully and without excuse repudiated the plain letter of the contract of carriage and refused to hear explanations in the face of the contract of carriage.

In this case, however, neither the conductor nor his company repudiated the contract and denied the passenger the right to ride but simply required him to take a different train which resulted in a delay of about thirty minutes. We call the court's attention to this difference, neither the case of Harper v. Railroad Co., 83 Miss. 564, 35 So. 764, nor the Gortikov case, have therefore application to this case. This case is controlled by Railroad v. Moore, 79 Miss. 766, 31 So. 436, and Vicksburg, etc., R. Co. v. Marlett, 78 Miss. 872, 29 So. 62.

We submit that conceding that Reid had a contract to be carried to Magnolia, it was perfectly reasonable to require him to wait at McComb and take another train rather than to stop this interstate fast train which the record shows was then behind schedule time. Other people were on this train and had a right equal to that of Reid at least, and the little inconvenience of asking him to wait thirty minutes at McComb rather than in convenience everybody else on the train surely could not be made the basis of punitive damages.

The suggestion that Galvani, the trainmaster, was misrepresenting facts, when he disclaimed any power to stop that train, finds no sort of support in the record.

Green & Green and R. W. Gutter, for appellee.

The case is fully covered by Railroad Company v. Harper, 83 Miss. 560, 35 So. 764. As said there, page 570, "It is idle to argue that the conductor, flatly refusing to listen to a perfectly reasonable explanation made by the woman, and putting her off, under the circumstances detailed in the evidence, at night, was not guilty of such intentional and oppressive wrong done as to warrant the imposition of punitive damages. It may as well be understood, once for all, that this court proposes to stand by the doctrine announced in the Drummond and Riley cases, as the just and true doctrine."

In Railroad Co. v. Riley, 68 Miss. 762, 765, 9 So. 443, it is said: "It is sufficient to say that where as here, the ticket in the hands of the passenger, supports and confirms the truth of his statement, and no possible injury can result to the carrier by the conductor's accepting and acting thereon, he must so act or refuse, at the peril of inviting an action for damages against his principal if the statement be true * * * And therefore than any regulation of the carrier authorizing the conductor of its trains to disregard such statement is unreasonable, and need not be submitted to by the passenger."

As said in the Harper case, page 569: "It was not only the duty of the conductor to listen to this most reasonable explanation, but, having heard it, as he did, it was wrong, a wilful wrong warranting the imposition of exemplary damages to put the lady off the train under the circumstances. It is none the less a wilful wrong because he acted in a gentlemanly manner and was guilty of no insolent conduct. She was subjected to the most grievous wrong, and she was intentionally subjected to it after full disclosure...