Southern Ry. Co. v. Herron

• Decision Date: 20 April 1915
• Docket Number: 694
• Citation: 68 So. 551,12 Ala.App. 415
• Parties: SOUTHERN RY. CO. v. HERRON.
• Court: Alabama Court of Appeals

68 So. 551

12 Ala.App. 415

SOUTHERN RY. CO. v. HERRON.

No. 694

Court of Appeals of Alabama

April 20, 1915

Appeal from Circuit Court, Walker County; J.J. Curtis, Judge.

Actlon by Mary Herron, pro ami, against the Southern Railway Company. From a judgment for plaintiff, defendant appeals. Affirmed.

Bankhead & Bankhead, of Jasper, for appellant.

W.L Acuff and R.L. Windham, both of Jasper, for appellee.

BROWN J.

The evidence shows that the plaintiff, at the time of the alleged wrong complained of in the complaint, was a child about nine months old; that the plaintiff's mother with the child in her arms became a passenger on the defendant's train at Burnwell, Ala., and after boarding the train paid to the defendant's servant, whose duty it was to receive fares and tickets, the regular fare to her destination, Coalburg, and that no other fare was demanded for the carrying of the child. Under these circumstances, and especially in view of the custom of railroads to carry children of this age when accompanied by an adult passenger paying fare free of charge, which is a matter of common knowledge, and of which the courts will take knowledge without proof, the plaintiff was a passenger, and the defendant owed her the same duty as it would had the mother paid fare for carrying the plaintiff. 2 Hutchinson on Carriers,§§ 1019, 1020; 2 White, Personal Inj. on R.R. § 559; Austin v. Great Western Ry. Co., L.R. 2 Q.B. 442; Littlejohn v. Railroad Co., 148 Mass. 478, 20 N.E 103, 2 L.R.A. 502.

There is evidence tending to show that when the defendant's agent collected the fare from plaintiff's mother she informed him that she had never been to Coalburg, but desired to get off at that station. The defendant owed the plaintiff the duty to give plaintiff's custodian notice that the train had stopped, or was about to stop, at her destination either by calling the station distinctly, so that the name of the station could be heard and understood, or by personal notice, and to stop the train at the regular station, and afford plaintiff's mother a safe place and reasonable time to alight from the train. A.C., G. & A. Ry. Co. v. Cox, 173 Ala. 634, 55 So. 909; Central of Ga. Ry. Co. v. Carlisle, 2 Ala.App. 514, 56 So. 737; 4 R.C.L. 1086, § 537; 6 Cyc. 585, § 5; 2 White, Per.Inj.R.R. §§ 703-713; 2 Hutchinson on Carriers, §§ 1121-1127.

While ordinarily the carrier is under no duty to give the passenger personal notice that his particular station has been reached "exceptional circumstances, however, may impose this duty, as where conditions of age, sex, or physical infirmity may bring that within the scope of the conductor's duty toward a passenger, although otherwise it would be beyond the limit of such obigation." 2 Hutchinson on Carriers, § 1121; Railway Co. v. Boyles, 11 Tex.Civ.App. 522, 33 S.W. 247; 2 White, Per.Inj. on R.R. § 709. If the defendant failed to perform these duties it owed the plaintiff, and carried her beyond her destination and in returning to her destination she was made ill as a proximate consequence thereof, she was entitled to recover. A.C., G. & A. Ry. Co. v. Cox, 173 Ala. 629, 55 So....