Southern Ry. Co. v. Flanigan
| Decision Date | 06 March 1912 |
| Docket Number | 3,821. |
| Citation | 74 S.E. 85,10 Ga.App. 745 |
| Parties | SOUTHERN RY. CO. v. FLANIGAN. |
| Court | Georgia Court of Appeals |
Syllabus by the Court.
In the absence of statutory prohibition or regulation, a railroad company may adopt a rule that certain passenger trains running regularly on its road, will stop only at designated places.
Where a common carrier sells to a person a ticket between two points on its line of road, and the ticket contains no express restriction as to the train or trains on which it will be accepted for passage, the holder thereof has the right to assume, in the absence of any information, actual or constructive, to the contrary, that he may ride on the ticket to his destination, as indicated by the ticket, on any train of the company carrying passengers to that point.
Where a person, having bought his ticket to a particular station on the line of the railroad, boards a passenger train of the company in ignorance of the fact that the train makes no stop at that particular place, it is the duty of the conductor when he first discovers the passenger's mistake, to inform him of the fact, in order that the passenger may exercise his option to remain on the train to the point to which his ticket entitles him to ride, or to disembark at some station where the train does stop. The passenger cannot be treated as a trespasser before reaching the station called for by his ticket; and if, over his protest, he is compelled by the conductor to leave the train before reaching it, his wrongful expulsion is a tort for which the railroad company is responsible in damages.
Error from City Court of Atlanta; H. M. Reid, Judge.
Action by F. B. Flanigan against the Southern Railway Company. Judgment for plaintiff, and defendant brings error. Affirmed.
McDaniel & Black and E. A. Neely, for plaintiff in error.
J. T Moore and Moore & Branch, for defendant in error.
The plaintiff's petition alleges that on March 26, 1910, she bought a ticket from the agent of the Southern Railway Company at Science Hill, Ky. entitling her to transportation to Jenkinsburg, Ga., and, after purchasing the ticket boarded one of the regular passenger trains of the defendant company with her six children for the purpose of going to Jenkinsburg, to which place the train was going. When she arrived at Atlanta, Ga., she was for the first time informed by the conductor of the train that the train she was on was a through train, and did not stop at Jenkinsburg, and that she would have to leave the train in Atlanta and wait for another train, in order to complete her trip to Jenkinsburg. The train arrived in Atlanta about 11 o'clock at night, and when the conductor told her that she could not continue her trip to Jenkinsburg on that train, and would be compelled to leave it, she objected to being put off in Atlanta, and insisted upon continuing her trip to Jenkinsburg on that train. Nevertheless the conductor would not permit her to complete her trip to Jenkinsburg, and she was thus compelled to leave the train and to wait in Atlanta from 11 o'clock that night until 7:30 o'clock next morning. She was practically without money, was an entire stranger in Atlanta, and was in a delicate state of health at the time. In this situation she was compelled to sit up in the depot in Atlanta all night with her children. She was caused great anxiety and physical suffering, suffered much pain and discomfort by reason of having to stay over in Atlanta and sit up all night, and was rendered ill by the worry, anxiety, and discomfort thus suffered by her, and she continued to suffer for several weeks as a result of these facts. She alleges that the conduct of the conductor in compelling her to leave the train in Atlanta under the circumstances stated amounted to an expulsion; that, having purchased a ticket to Jenkinsburg, she was entitled to be carried on that ticket to that point; that she was not informed, when she boarded the train at Science Hill, that the train was a through train and would not stop at Jenkinsburg, and that she would have to remain in Atlanta for another train, and she was for the first time informed of this fact by the conductor on reaching Atlanta. She sues to recover damages, both compensatory and punitive, for the tortious conduct of the conductor. The defendant filed a demurrer, on general and special grounds. Some of the special grounds were sustained, with leave to amend, and some were overruled. The general demurrer was overruled, and to the judgment overruling this general demurrer the defendant excepted.
Three questions are raised by the record: (1) As to the right of the railroad company to promulgate rules regulating the running and stopping of its trains at stations, requiring some trains to run through without stopping, except at designated stations on its line, and others to stop at all stations; (2) as to the duty of one who buys a ticket to inform himself on what train the ticket would entitle him to transportation; and (3) as to the rights of the passenger who ignorantly boards a train which does not stop at the station to which he has bought a ticket, and the correlative duty of the conductor of the train when he discovers that such passenger is on the wrong train.
1. In the absence of statutory regulation or prohibition, a railroad company may adopt regulations that certain passenger trains, running regularly on its roads, shall stop only at designated stations. There can be no doubt that such rules and regulations are reasonable, and are necessary in the proper conduct of the business of the railroad company. Civil Code 1910, § 2729; Southern Ry. Co. v. Watson, 110 Ga. 681, 36 S.E. 209; Harp v. Southern Ry. Co., 119 Ga. 927, 47 S.E. 206, 100 Am.St.Rep. 212; Hutchinson on Carriers (3d Ed.) § 1060. But a rule, however reasonable, should be enforced with due regard to the obligation of extraordinary diligence which the law imposes upon carriers of passengers.
2. It is insisted by counsel for the plaintiff in error that a passenger is bound to inquire and ascertain whether the train which he proposes to take stops at the station to which his ticket entitles him to ride; that if, without inquiry, he boards a train which, by the regulations of the carrier, does not stop at his destination, he cannot require the train to be stopped at such destination, but that he may lawfully ride to the nearest point short of his destination where the train regularly stops; and it is said that there is no allegation in the petition that the plaintiff made any effort to have the train on which she had taken passage stop at the nearest point short of Jenkinsburg, the particular station to which she had bought a ticket, nor, in fact, that Atlanta was not the nearest scheduled stop of that train to Jenkinsburg. The rule as claimed by the plaintiff in error is unquestionably supported by great weight of authorities, both text-writers and decisions of courts. Hutchinson on Carriers (3d Ed.) § 1060, an cases cited in the notes; 4 Elliott on Railroads, p. 1593; 3 Thompson's Commentaries on the Law of Negligence, § 2562. Discussing this subject, Thompson, in his Commentaries on Negligence, supra, declares that "it is the duty of a person before taking passage upon a railroad train to use reasonable diligence, by inquiring of the station agent or the conductor of the train, or by reading the published schedules of the train, or by other means, to ascertain whether or not the particular train stops at his particular place of destination," and he cites in support of this rule several decisions in the notes, which hold, in effect, that where an intended passenger purchases a ticket at the company's office when the train is about to depart in the direction in which he wishes to go, without making inquiry as to whether or not the train will stop at the particular station to which he has purchased the ticket, and after boarding the train he learns for the first time that the train will not stop at that station, he has no redress against the company, either for carrying him beyond his particular station, or for requiring him to get off at an intermediate station.
In the case of Texas & Pacific Railway Co. v. Ludlam, 57 F 481, 6 C.C.A. 454, Judge Pardee, speaking for the Circuit Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, announces the rule as follows: "It is the duty of the person about to take passage on a railroad train to inform himself when, where, and how he can go or stop, according to the regulations of the...
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