Mosher v. St Louis Ry Co

• Decision Date: 14 May 1888
• Citation: 8 S.Ct. 1324,127 U.S. 390,32 L.Ed. 249
• Parties: MOSHER v. ST. LOUIS, I. M. & S. RY. CO. 1
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

8 S.Ct. 1324

127 U.S. 390

32 L.Ed. 249

MOSHER v. ST. LOUIS, I. M. & S. RY. CO.¹

May 14, 1888.

[Statement of Case from pages 390-393 intentionally omitted] Clinton Rowell, for plaintiff in error.

John F. Dillon and Winslow S. Pierce, Jr., for defendant in error.

Mr. Justice GRAY, after stating the facts as above, delivered the opinion of the court.

The right of this plaintiff to be carried upon the defendant's train, without paying additional fare, does not depend upon his having been received as an ordinary passenger, or upon any representations made by a ticket seller, conductor, or other officer of the company as to his right to use a ticket, but wholly upon the construction and effect of the written contract, signed by him, upon the face of the ticket (of the kind called 'tourist's' or 'round-trip' tickets) sold him by the defendant for a passage to Hot Springs, and back, by which, in consideration of a reduced rate of fare, he agreed to the following terms: By the fifth condition the ticket 'is not good for return passage unless the holder indentifies himself as the original purchaser to the satisfaction of the authorized agent of the IIot Springs Railroad at Hot Springs, Ark., within eighty-five days from date of sale; and, when officially signed and dated in ink and duly stamped by said agent, this ticket shall then be good only five days from such date.' The clear meaning of this condition is that the ticket shall not be good for a return passage at all, unless, within 85 days from its original date, the holder not only identifies himself as the original purchaser to the satisfaction of the agent named, but that agent signs, dates, and stamps the ticket; and that, upon such identification and stamping, the ticket shall be good for five days from the new dat. The sixth condition, by which the ticket is to be void if the plaintiff does not sign his name, and otherwise identify himself, whenever called upon so to do by any conductor or agent of either of the lines over which he may pass, is evidently intended as an additional precaution against a transfer of the ticket either in going or in returning, and not as an alternative or substitute for the previous condition to the validity of the ticket for a return trip. The twelfth condition states that the plaintiff understands and expressly agrees that no agent or employe of any of the lines has any power to alter, modify, or waive any of the conditions of the contract. By the express contract between the parties, therefore, the plaintiff had no right to a return passage under the ticket, unless it bore the stamp of the agent at Hot Springs. Such stamp was made by the contract a condition precedent to the right to a return passage, and no agent or employe of the defendant was authorized to waive that condition. The plaintiff contends that, as there was no agent at the office at Hot Springs, to whose satisfaction he could identify himself, and by whom he could have his ticket stamped, when he presented...