Nashville & Chattanooga R.R. Co. v. Sprayberry

• Citation: 56 Tenn. 852
• Parties: NASHVILLE & CHATTANOOGA RAILROAD COMPANY v. WILLIAM L. SPRAYBERRY.
• Decision Date: 09 January 1930
• Court: Tennessee Supreme Court

56 Tenn. 852

NASHVILLE & CHATTANOOGA RAILROAD COMPANY

v.WILLIAM L. SPRAYBERRY.^a1

Supreme Court of Tennessee.

September 01,1874.

FROM HAMILTON.

Appeal in error from the judgment of the Circuit Court, November Term, 1873. JOHN B. HOYL, J.

S. A. KEY, T. RICHMOND for appellant.

E. M. DODSON for appellee.

MCFARLAND, J., delivered the opinion of the Court.

Sprayberry purchased from an agent of the Nashville & Chattanooga Railroad Company at Chattanooga, tickets for himself, wife, and two children, from that place to Shreveport, Louisiana. The tickets are what are known as coupon tickets, and indicated the route to be by the Nashville & Chattanooga road to Nashville, and by other connecting roads to Memphis, and from that point to Shreveport by steamboat. After passing over the Railroads to Memphis, the party took the Steamboat called the Nick Wall, to which they were directed, and while en route on the Mississippi river, an accident occurred, in which the wife of Sprayberry and his two children were drowned. Sprayberry brought this action against the Nashville & Chattanooga Railroad Co., and recovered a judgment for thirteen thousand eight hundred and sixty-five dollars, ($13,865.) The drowning is averred to have been the result of the misconduct and want of skill on the part of the officers and servants of the Boat. A demurrer was filed, on the ground that the plaintiff could not maintain the action, in his own name, for the wrongs or injuries causing the death of the wife and children. This, we think, was properly overruled. An action of this character is unknown to the Common Law, and is only given by Statute;--but, where such an action is given and a remedy prescribed, that remedy must be pursued. As the injury occurred in the State of Mississippi, the right of action and the remedy prescribed by the Statute of that State, is the one to which the plaintiff is entitled. The Statute of this State on the subject has no application. The action, though predicated upon the Mississippi Statute, may be brought in this State. In such case, the declaration must aver the Statute under which it is brought: this was sufficiently done: that Statute gives the remedy to the husband and father, and we enforce that remedy in our Courts.

The next question, and one of importance, is as to the liability of the Nashville & Chattanooga Railroad Company for injuries to the passengers, caused by the wrongful acts, negligence, or want of skill in the officers and servants of the steamboat, after the passengers had passed beyond their line. The declaration avers that the defendant was in partnership with the Company, or line of carriers owning the boat. This was put in issue. The Judge, in his charge, instructed the jury in substance, that it was necessary for the plaintiff to prove this, to entitle him to a recovery; but, if the plaintiff purchased the tickets from an authorized agent of the defendant, the defendant, thereby, became bound for the transportation of the passengers over the entire line for which the tickets were sold, although beyond the terminus of its own road. And that the Company selling the tickets incurred the responsibility, as though the entire route were its own--unless it stipulated at the time for a less responsibility. This we understand to be the substance of the instructions to the jury on this question. This doctrine rests upon the theory that the contract is alone with the Company from whom the tickets were purchased for the entire route, and that the connecting lines are but agents of the first in carrying out this contract; and, as a consequence, the acts or negligence of the servants causing the injury, are the acts of the joint Company. This is laid down, as the true doctrine, in Shearman & Redfield on negligence, Sec. 272. Though it is conceded, that the American cases do not always support it. The cases referred to in support of the position, we have not had an opportunity to examine. In the case of Carter & Hough v. Peck, 4 Sneed, the language of the Judge, delivering the opinion of the Court, seems to favor this view. In that case, however, it appeared that the plaintiff purchased from the defendants, the proprietors of a stage line, through tickets from Nashville to Memphis. The defendants did not own the entire line, but had an arrangement with another Company...