Southern Ry. Co. v. Phillips
| Citation | 71 S.E. 414,136 Ga. 282 |
| Parties | SOUTHERN RY. CO. v. PHILLIPS. |
| Decision Date | 11 May 1911 |
| Court | Supreme Court of Georgia |
Syllabus by the Court.
Where a paragraph in a petition contains both relevant and irrelevant allegations, it will be purged of the irrelevant matters on special demurrer pointing out such; but if the demurrer goes to the paragraph as a whole, without specification of the irrelevant matter, the demurrant cannot complain that the entire paragraph was not stricken.
According to the plaintiff's testimony, she was a passenger on defendant's road, and entitled to continuous passage from B. to E. She was accompanied by a small child and carried a valise. The terminal point of the train upon which she traveled was Jesup, where she was to change cars. She was told by the conductor, as the train was approaching the station of Odessa, which was within five miles of Jesup, that this was the place for her to get off. The plaintiff alighted as directed, and did not discover her mistake until after the train had left. There were no station facilities, and there were some negroes near by. It was about 10 o'clock at night, and she became frightened, because she was apparently without protection or a place to spend the night. She inquired of the negroes for direction to a house where she could spend the night. They directed her to a place. And on the way there she met a white youth, who invited her to spend the night with his mother, by whom she was hospitably entertained, and on the following morning she continued her journey to destination; the railway company accepting her original ticket. If the jury should find these circumstances to be true, then the plaintiff would be entitled to compensatory, but not to punitive, damages.
(a) Even if the plaintiff had been entitled to punitive damages the charge that the jury could consider the worldly circumstances of the parties in assessing such damages was erroneous.
Error from Superior Court, Wayne County; P. E. Seabrook, Judge.
Action by Mrs. Georgia C. Phillips against the Southern Railway Company. Judgment for plaintiff, and defendant brings error. Reversed.
Bennet Twitty & Reese and Littlefield & Poppell, for plaintiff in error.
W. M Clements, W. W. Bennett, and D. M. Clark, for defendant in error.
Mrs Georgia C. Phillips brought suit against the Southern Railway Company to recover damages for being put off at a wrong station. The plaintiff, having purchased a ticket, boarded the passenger train of the defendant company at Brunswick on a journey to Empire. It was necessary for her to change cars at Jesup. She was accompanied by her small child and carried a small valise. After she had been traveling for some time, and as the train was slowing up for a station, the conductor announced that it was the place for petitioner to leave the train, at the same time taking up the package and directing her with her child to follow him; and, acting upon the direction of the conductor, she left the train, which, as soon as she disembarked, rapidly moved away, leaving her in darkness. The place where she was put off was Odessa, a place five miles south of Jesup, without depot accommodations or other provisions for her comfort or safety. It was 10 or 11 o'clock at night when she left the train, and for some time the only persons she saw were several negroes. She was very much frightened, and after some time had elapsed a white boy was called to her by the negroes, whom she asked if there were any white people in the community, and he finally secured a place for her to spend the remainder of the night. The plaintiff alleged that the conduct of the conductor in causing her to leave the train at a point other than her destination at a strange place, in the nighttime, was gross negligence and wanton and willful misconduct. The defendant demurred generally and specially to the petition. The demurrer was overruled, and the case proceeded to trial.
On the trial the plaintiff testified that she purchased a ticket over the road of the defendant company, entitling her to a passage from Brunswick, Ga., to Empire. The train upon which she took passage left Brunswick at about 8 o'clock at night. When the conductor took up her ticket, she asked him if she did not have to change at some place between Brunswick and Empire, and he said, "Yes, you change at Jesup," and told her that the train was due to arrive at Jesup at about 10 o'clock. Near that time the conductor came through the coach and called out the station, and she understood him to say Jesup. She was intending to ask some one before the train stopped if the station was Jesup, when the conductor took up her valise and hat box and said "Here is where you get off at," and when the train stopped the conductor assisted the plaintiff to alight. She thought she was at Jesup until the train had left. She saw some negroes around the station, and also a white lady, who got off the same train she did. When she got off the train, she saw a switch light and started in that direction, thinking it was the depot. She asked the lady who got off the same train with her where she was going, and she replied that she was going home, and she asked her where to go to take the next train, and she said, "Go down there and ask them," waving to the place where some negroes were. She asked them where to go to take the next train, and they replied that there would be no train until the next morning, and said, "You think you are at Jesup, but this is Odessa." She inquired of them where she could spend the night and they directed her to the "captain's house." On their way they saw a young white boy named Carl Moody, who, being informed by the negroes that the plaintiff wanted to spend the night somewhere, invited her to spend the night with his mot...
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