Indianapolis St. Ry. Co. v. Wilson

• Decision Date: 19 March 1903
• Citation: 66 N.E. 950,161 Ind. 153
• Parties: INDIANAPOLIS ST. RY. CO. v. WILSON.
• Court: Indiana Supreme Court

161 Ind. 153

66 N.E. 950

INDIANAPOLIS ST. RY. CO.

v.WILSON.¹

Supreme Court of Indiana.

March 19, 1903.

Appeal from Circuit Court, Johnson County; W. J. Buckingham, Judge.

Action by Samuel J. Wilson against the Indianapolis Street Railway Company.From a judgment for plaintiff, defendant appeals.Transferred from the Appellate Court under Burns'Rev. St. 1901, § 1377u. Affirmed.

Chambers, Pickens & Morres, F. Winter, and W. H. Latta, for appellant.Wm. A. Johnson and Wymond J. Beckett, for appellee.

JORDAN, J.

Action by appellee against appellant to recover damages for an unlawful expulsion from one of its street cars.A trial by jury resulted in appellee being awarded damages, and, over appellant's motion for a new trial, judgment was rendered on the verdict of the jury.From this judgment appellant appeals, and the sole question involved is, can the expulsion of appellee by appellant from its car, under the circumstances, be legally justified?

The following are facts material to the point in issue: Appellant is a corporation engaged as a common carrier in operating a street railway in the city of Indianapolis.By the provisions and terms of the franchise granted to it by said city, and under which it is operating its railroad therein, a passenger, on the payment of the required fare, is entitled to demand and receive, without extra charge, from the conductor of the car upon which he first takes passage, a transfer ticket, which entities him to be carried as a passenger over the line to which he is transferred.Appellant's grant or franchise, which it obtained from the city of Indianapolis, under its terms and conditions not only imposes upon it the duty of granting to the passenger the privilege of transfer upon his request, but provides particularly that the line to which the passenger is transferred “shall be plainly indicated on said transfer ticket.”It is shown that appellee on the evening of September 23, 1899, took passage upon one of appellant's cars running on and over its College avenue line, and upon paying his fare he requested the conductor in charge of said car to give him a transfer ticket to the Virginia avenue line, his destination being a point on the latter line.Upon his taking passage on one of the cars running on and over the Virginia avenue line the conductor in charge of said car demanded fare of appellee, and the latter tendered to said conductor the transfer ticket which he had received from the College avenue conductor.Upon the tender of this ticket it appears that a controversy arose between appellee and the conductor on the Virginia avenue car in regard to said ticket, the conductor claiming that the ticket was a South East street transfer instead of a Virginia avenue transfer, and demanded that appellee pay his fare or leave the car.He explained to the conductor that he had requested the College avenue conductor to give him a transfer ticket to the Virginia avenue line, and had received the ticket which he then tendered.The following is what appellee testified to as a witness upon the trial in respect to what took place between him and the conductor after he took passage on the Virginia avenue car: “The conductor asked me for my fare, and I handed him this transfer ticket, and he said it was not a Virginia avenue transfer.I said I got it from the College avenue conductor for a Virginia avenue, and I believe it is a Virginia avenue, and I examined it very closely, and I could hardly distinguish it then.That was the first time I examined it very closely.I told him I received it from the College avenue conductor, and asked the College avenue conductor for a Virginia avenue transfer, and that is what he gave me for a Virginia avenue transfer.He said it was a South East street transfer, and I thought it was a Virginia avenue transfer.”It appears it was dark when the appellee boarded the College avenue car, but the latter was illuminated with electric lights, and he is shown to have been on the car for about 10 minutes before he alighted therefrom to take passage on the transfer line.The transfer ticket was of the usual form used by the company, and contained spaces or points where the conductor was to punch in order to indicate the line to which the passenger was to be transferred.Immediately at the left of the word “Virginia” was the word “Avenue.”The last five letters of the word “Virginia” ran through the dark space in which the conductor was to punch to indicate that the passenger had been transferred to the Virginia avenue line.Immediately below this space was one intended to be punched in the event the passenger was transferred to South East street, a line dividing the two spaces.In punching the transfer ticket in question it appears that the College avenue conductor had awkwardly used the punch, and, instead of plainly indicating that appellee had been transferred to the Virginia avenue line, he punched out what might be said to be the entirespace opposite South East street, and also a part of the Virginia avenue space, the puncture made extending across the line dividing the two spaces, and this, as it seems, gave rise to the controversy between the appellee and the conductor of the Virginia avenue line; the latter insisting that the ticket indicated that the former had been transferred to the South East street line, while appellee, on the other hand, insisted that he had requested a transfer to the Virginia avenue line, and stated that he believed the ticket indicated such transfer.Upon appellee's refusal to pay the additional fare which the conductor on the Virginia avenue line demanded, he was forcibly ejected from the car by the conductor and motorman.

Appellee, as the facts show, became a passenger upon one of appellant's street cars, and paid the required fare, and thereupon requested, as he had a right to do, to be furnished a transfer ticket over the Virginia avenue line of appellant's road, in order that he might be carried to the end of his journey.Upon the payment of his fare and making the request which he did, the duty then rested upon appellant, under the provisions and conditions of the franchise which it had obtained from the city of Indianapolis, to furnish or provide appellee, as such passenger, with a transfer ticket plainly indicating thereby the line of its railway to which he, in accordance with his request, had been transferred, and over which, under the circumstances, he had the right to be carried.It is possibly true, as counsel for appellant seemingly insist, that appellee had ample time and opportunity to inspect his transfer ticket, and thereby ascertain whether the conductor of the College avenue car had properly performed his duty by correctly indicating the line of transfer.The duty of inspection, under the circumstances, the law did not exact of him, for, in the absence of any notice to the contrary, he had the right to presume that appellant's conductor and agent had correctly discharged his duty in punching the ticket, and thereby indicating the transfer over the line in accordance with his request.Appellee had nothing to do with the preparation of the ticket, for appellant seems to have prescribed the form and contents thereof, and also the method or means to be employed to indicate or point out thereon the line of its railway over which a transferee was entitled to be carried.The many words, figures, spaces, and abbreviations which the ticket furnished by appellant to appellee, as exhibited by the record, contained, would prima facie be unintelligible to many persons, and certainly it would be an unreasonable imposition to require of a passenger, upon receiving one of these tickets, the duty to inspect the same in order to discover if the conductor had made a mistake in the performance of his duty.Appellee, a mere passenger, under the circumstances, was not, in the eye of the law, either presumed or bound to know the meaning of the various figures, abbreviations, punch marks, and other mystic symbols which the transfer ticket in question contained.These possibly could only be correctly interpreted or read in the light of the rules and regulations adopted by appellant company for the guidance of its conductors and employés.Neither was he presumed to know or required to take notice of these rules and regulations made by appellant for the aforesaid purposes.The above propositions are well and firmly established by the authorities.It may be said, it is true, that there is a sharp conflict between the authorities in respect to the question as to whether a ticket furnished by a common carrier for transportation shall be treated and regarded as conclusive evidence of the holder's right of passage.There is a line of decisions which affirm the rule that the ticket must be considered as conclusive evidence of the passenger's rights, although it may not, in its true sense, express or evidence the contract into which the passenger and the carrier entered.These cases hold that, in the event a ticket is defective, the defects of which are due to the negligence or carelessness of the agent or agents of the carrier, then, under the circumstances, the expulsion of the holder thereof, upon his refusal to pay the additional fare required, is justified.While, on the other hand, there is another long line of cases which rule to the contrary, and deny the conclusive force of a ticket furnished by the carrier to the passenger.The latter cases, in effect, affirm that the ticket is only the evidence of the contract as made between the passenger and the carrier, and, if it fails to disclose the true contract, its infirmity or fault in this respect must be charged to the carrier, and the latter is liable for the natural consequences resulting by reason of the defects in the ticket due to the negligence of its agents.They affirm the rule that, inasmuch as the passenger is neither required under the law, nor in fact...