Pullman Co. v. Lutz

• Decision Date: 06 February 1908
• Citation: 154 Ala. 517,45 So. 675
• Parties: PULLMAN CO. v. LUTZ.
• Court: Alabama Supreme Court

45 So. 675

154 Ala. 517

PULLMAN CO. v. LUTZ.

Supreme Court of Alabama

February 6, 1908

Appeal from City Court of Anniston; Thomas W. Coleman, Jr., Judge.

Action by F. L. Lutz against the Pullman Company. Judgment for plaintiff, and defendant appeals. Affirmed.

Dowdell and Anderson, JJ., dissenting in part.

Campbell & Walker and Knox, Acker & Blackmon, for appellant.

Matthews & Matthews, for appellee.

DOWDELL J.

The complaint as amended averred the duty of the defendant to notify her of her arrival at her destination. It is unimportant whether the duty arose out of a special contract or out of the relation between the parties. It is urged in argument that, as the defendant was not a common carrier, the defendant was under no legal duty to notify a passenger being transported in one of its cars of arrival at his destination. We cannot give our assent to the proposition. Sleeping car companies, while neither common carriers nor innkeepers, are nevertheless as distinctly public servants as either of the former, with such duties imposed by law in their relation to the general public as fairly and reasonably pertains to the business and arise out of such relation in the service they undertake to perform. They operate their cars in connection with and attached to trains for the transportation of passengers, and though they do not contract to transport as common carriers, yet in the course of transportation by the carrier they hold themselves out to the traveling public as affording in their palace cars accommodations, comforts, and conveniences superior to those of the ordinary day coach of the carrier, and which they promise to furnish for a reward. They have their own conductors in the management and control of their cars, and their porters to serve and wait upon the passenger; and, as a matter of common knowledge, it is their custom to render assistance to their passengers in disembarking from the train. It is also a matter of common knowledge that it is a common practice for the Pullman conductor to collect from his passenger the train fare, and it is of no importance in this connection by what arrangement with the common carrier or its agents this is done. These conditions and circumstances attending a public service company are in law sufficient to impose the duty of notifying the passenger of arrival at his destination. While no case directly in point has been brought to our attention, there are adjudged cases which in principle point to the conclusion announced. Pullman Co. v. Smith, 79 Tex. 468, 14 S.W. 993, 13 L. R. A. 215, 23 Am. St. Rep. 356; Nevin v Pullman Co., 106 Ill. 222, 46 Am. Rep. 688; Pullman Co. v. Matthews, 74 Tex. 654, 12 S.W. 744, 15 Am. St Rep. 873; 6 Cyc. pp. 656, 657, 4a, 4b, 4c. See, also Hutchinson on Carriers (3d Ed.) p. 1343, § 1142. We do not mean to intimate, in what we have said above in respect to the duty imposed by law on sleeping car companies, that the common carrier is thereby relieved of its duty to likewise notify the passenger of arrival at his destination. Our conclusion is that the court committed no error in overruling the demurrer.

A motion for a new trial was made by the defendant on grounds that the verdict of the jury was contrary to the evidence and that the same was also excessive. The evidence was in conflict,...