Pelot v. Atlantic Coast Line R. Co.

• Decision Date: 14 December 1910
• Citation: 60 Fla. 159,53 So. 937
• Parties: PELOT v. ATLANTIC COAST LINE R. CO.
• Court: Florida Supreme Court

53 So. 937

60 Fla. 159

PELOT v. ATLANTIC COAST LINE R. CO.

Florida Supreme Court, Division B.

December 14, 1910

Headnotes Filed Jan. 17, 1911.

Error to Circuit Court, De Soto County; J. B. Wall, Judge.

Action by W. A. Pelot against the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad Company. Judgment for defendant, and plaintiff brings error. Reversed and remanded, with directions.

Syllabus by the Court

SYLLABUS

Passengers do not contract merely for ship room and transportation from one place to another; but they also contract for good treatment, and against personal rudeness, and every wanton interference with their persons, either by the carrier or his agents employed in the management of the ship or other conveyance. If the wrongful act is inflicted on the plaintiff while he is a passenger in actual course of transportation by a servant of the carrier acting as such at the time of the act, the law will consider the carrier as responsible therefor, without inquiring whether the wrong was committed in the execution of the servant's employment. Whatever may be the motive which incites the servant to commit an unlawful or improper act towards the passenger during the existence of the relation of carrier and passenger, the carrier is liable for the act and its natural and legitimate consequences.

Passenger carriers, by their contracts, bind themselves to carry safely those whom they take into their coaches or cars as far as human foresight will go; that is, for the utmost care and diligence of very cautious persons.

A declaration that distinctly alleges that, while the plaintiff was a passenger in course of transportation on the defendant's train, the defendant's employé, the porter on said train, who was in the discharge of the duties of his employment, did negligently, violently, and suddenly regardless of plaintiff's rights, shove and push a swinging door in said passenger coach back and upon plaintiff's foot, without any fault upon plaintiff's part, thereby causing serious injury to plaintiff's foot states a legal cause of action, and is not subject to demurrer.

COUNSEL Leitner & Leitner, for plaintiff in error.

Sparkman & Carter, for defendant in error.

OPINION

TAYLOR J.

The plaintiff in error, as plaintiff below, sued the defendant in error, as defendant below, in the circuit court of De Soto county; the declaration in the case being as follows:

'Comes now the plaintiff herein, by his attorneys, Leitner & Leitner, and sues the defendant, Atlantic Coast Line Railroad Company, who has an agent in De Soto county, Florida, and who has been summoned to answer plaintiff in an action of trespass on the case.

'For that, whereas, heretofore, to wit, on or about the 6th day of July, 1909, the said defendant was a common carrier for hire and operated a line of railroad for the carriage of passengers from the city of Jacksonville, Duval county, Florida, through Bradford county, by the way of Lake Butler, to the city of Gainesville, Florida, Alachua county; that on or about the said date, to wit, July 6, 1909, the said plaintiff was a lawful passenger on the defendant's road from said Jacksonville to Gainesville; that in defendant's coach, in which plaintiff was riding, there were two compartments, to wit, the passenger and smoker, with a partition between, and to allow ingress and egress from the passenger portion of said coach into the said smoker there is a swinging door in said partition; that on said train there were servants of defendant, to wit, a porter, whose duty it was to announce to the passengers on said train the several stations through which defendant's road ran; that plaintiff had been riding on the said train in the smoker, but just after passing Lake Butler he got up from his seat in the smoker and started into the passenger portion of said coach; that when plaintiff was within a few feet of said swinging door, and without any fault on the part of plaintiff, the said porter, coming from the passenger portion of said coach into the smoker, in the discharge of his duty, did negligently, violently, and suddenly, regardless of the rights of plaintiff, shove and push the said swinging door back upon plaintiff's foot, which said stroke did then and there crush and bruise plaintiff's foot, causing it to rise and inflame, from which plaintiff was sick and sore for many weeks, to the damage of plaintiff in the sum of $800; that he was forced and...