Lucas v. Southern Ry. Co.

• Decision Date: 08 February 1899
• Citation: 122 Ala. 529,25 So. 219
• Parties: LUCAS v. SOUTHERN RY. CO.
• Court: Alabama Supreme Court

25 So. 219

122 Ala. 529

LUCAS v. SOUTHERN RY. CO.

Supreme Court of Alabama

February 8, 1899

Appeal from circuit court, Bibb county; John Moore, Judge.

Action by James Lucas against the Southern Railway Company. Upon the introduction of all the evidence, the court, at the request of the defendant, gave the general affirmative charge in its behalf, and to the giving of this charge the plaintiff duly excepted. There were verdict and judgment for the defendant. The plaintiff appeals, and assigns as error the rulings of the trial court to which exceptions were reserved. Affirmed.

J. M McMaster and W. S. Carry, for appellant.

Smith &amp Weatherly and Edward S. Lyman, for appellee.

TYSON J.

The complaint in this case avers that plaintiff contracted with defendant to transport and deliver the corpse of his infant child from Blocton, Ala., to Aldridge, Ala., both being stations on the defendant's line of road; that he paid the price of transportation charged, and defendant accepted said corpse for transportation; that the contract of affreightment was effectuated by the purchase of a passenger ticket for said corpse; that defendant negligently and carelessly failed to carry the said body to Aldridge, but left it at a station some six miles distant from Aldridge. The complaint further avers that, in consequence of this negligence, the funeral of said infant was delayed, and plaintiff was "sorely vexed and harassed, and suffered great mental pain and anguish, and was compelled to prolong his stay from his business, to wit, two days, to his special damage," etc. The undisputed evidence, as shown by the record, is that one G. B. Lucas, a kinsman of the plaintiff was in charge of the corpse, and purchased the tickets for its transportation and the transportation of three other persons, the plaintiff being one of them, who were accompanying the remains. The record affirmatively discloses that plaintiff was not present when the tickets were purchased, and never had them in his possession; that G. B Lucas delivered all the tickets to the conductor of the train, telling him that one was for the corpse, which was put in the caboose of the mixed train, and transferred at Gurnee Junction to the baggage car of the regular passenger train; and, further, that the only information imparted by G. B. Lucas to defendant's agent when he purchased the tickets was that one of them was for a "corpse," which ticket the agent identified by writing the word "corpse" upon it. The evidence further shows that plaintiff gave the money to G. B. Lucas to pay for all the tickets purchased by him, and G. B. Lucas testified that he was acting for the plaintiff in the purchase of the tickets; but it is nowhere shown that this was disclosed or known to the agent when he sold the tickets. On the contrary, the agent testified that he did not know that the "corpse" was the body of plaintiff's child; that there were three families by the name of Lucas living in Blocton, and that he knew that an...