Mueller v. St. Louis Transit Co.

• Decision Date: 15 November 1904
• Citation: 83 S.W. 270,108 Mo. App. 325
• Parties: MUELLER v. ST. LOUIS TRANSIT CO.
• Court: Missouri Court of Appeals

83 S.W. 270

108 Mo. App. 325

MUELLER v. ST. LOUIS TRANSIT CO.

St. Louis Court of Appeals. Missouri.

November 15, 1904.

STREET RAILROADS — INDIGNITIES TO PASSENGER — DAMAGES — EXCESSIVENESS.

1. Where a conductor of a street car declined to accept from a passenger a transfer check, and demanded fare, and forcibly resisted his efforts to leave the car, detaining him while the car journeyed several miles, and threatening to take him to a police station, though he explained the conditions under which he received the check from a conductor on another line, a verdict for $25 compensatory damages and $500 for punitive damages was not so excessive as to warrant the court on appeal in interfering with the refusal of the trial court to set it aside.

Appeal from St. Louis Circuit Court; Warwick Hough, Judge.

Action by Fred L. Mueller against the St. Louis Transit Company. From a judgment for plaintiff, defendant appeals. Affirmed.

Boyle, Priest & Lehman, for appellant. Rassieur & Rassieur, for respondent.

REYBURN, J.

The trial of this action portrayed the following occurrence, for which plaintiff brought suit for damages against defendant, both compensatory and punitive, and was awarded by verdict of a jury a recovery of $25 of former and $500 of latter class of damages: On the 18th of August, 1902, plaintiff, a retail merchant, took passage on a street car of defendant in the southwest district of the city of St. Louis, traveling to his place of business some distance northwardly and eastwardly. The car which he first boarded belonged to that branch of defendant's united street car system styled the "Tower Grove Line," and upon payment of his fare he applied for and obtained a transfer ticket or check, entitling him to continue his journey on a car of the Cherokee Line or Division, which passed on the street in front of his store. A wreck on the Tower Grove Line obstructed the car on which he was a passenger at Geyer and Ohio avenues, and it was returned over its route to California and Geyer avenues to proceed to the main or central part of the city over the Bellefontaine Line of the same system. The Cherokee Line extends further southward in the city than the two other divisions mentioned, and intersects the Bellefontaine Line at Eighteenth and Victor streets, whence both, for the distance of a few blocks, use the same track, until they diverge at Eighteenth street and Gravois avenue. Before leaving the car at the latter streets, Mueller questioned...