St. Louis, I. M. & S. Ry. Co. v. Wilson

• Decision Date: 25 January 1902
• Citation: 66 S.W. 661
• Parties: ST. LOUIS, I. M. & S. RY. CO. v. WILSON.
• Court: Arkansas Supreme Court

66 S.W. 661

ST. LOUIS, I. M. & S. RY. CO. v. WILSON.

Supreme Court of Arkansas.

January 25, 1902.

Appeal from circuit court, Saline county; Alexander M. Duffie, Judge.

Action by Dilsia Wilson, by her next friend, H. L. Wilson, against the St. Louis, Iron Mountain & Southern Railway Company. Judgment for plaintiff, and defendant appeals. Reversed.

Dilsia Wilson, a colored girl under 18 years of age, by her next friend, charged in her complaint that on the 29th day of December, 1898, about 9 o'clock a. m., she went to the depot at Benton, Ark., for the purpose of taking the train to Traskwood; that the weather was cold and disagreeable; that she went into the colored waiting room, and was compelled to remain in the cold, without any fire, for about one hour, until the train arrived, in consequence whereof she was caused to have a chill, and was very sick during the remainder of that day, and during two weeks thereafter. The complaint further charged that shortly after she went into the waiting room defendant's servants wrongfully, willfully, and knowingly imprisoned her therein by locking or causing to be locked the only door to the colored waiting room, wrongfully depriving her of her liberty, and preventing her from peaceable egress from said room. It further charged that she was grievously insulted and offended and affrightened by profane and abusive language, and vile and insulting signs, directed to her by persons who were outside and in the adjoining white people's waiting room; that, notwithstanding oft-repeated demands and entreaties to defendant's servants for protection and for a fire, defendant's servants willfully refused and neglected to unlock said door, to build a fire in the room, or to protect her from said insulting remarks, to her damage in the sum of $1,500. The answer denied explicitly and particularly each of the charges made in the complaint. The testimony on behalf of appellee tended to show that on the morning of December 29, 1898, she and two other negro girls and a negro man went to appellant's depot at Benton to take passage on one of its passenger trains. When they reached the depot they found the colored waiting room locked, but upon request the door was opened, and they went in. There was no fire in the waiting room, and it was cold. They requested the agent several times to make a fire, or have one made. The agent cursed, and told the one making the request to "go on, the train would be there in five or ten minutes." They remained in the waiting room about an hour and a half or two hours before the train came. A short while after they went into the waiting room one Walter McMann, a white boy, locked the door, and they remained locked in until the train came. They told the agent several times that they wanted a fire made and the door unlocked. They told the agent as soon as the door was locked. He gave no heed to their request to have the door unlocked or to make a fire. The door was unlocked when the train came. While they remained in the waiting room, some "white fellows" came to the door, "licked out their tongues," "made faces at them," and were "swearing and cursing," calling them damn bitches, and using "other words." They did not know whether Rainey, the agent, heard this cursing and swearing or not. He was in his office, and they supposed he could have heard it had he been listening. Appellee was a little negro girl. She got "awful cold," as one witness expressed it, while she was in the waiting room; and after she left the train at Traskwood she got sick, and was sick about two weeks. She had not been sick before she went to the depot at Benton. The testimony for appellant tended to negative all the material facts which appellee's testimony tended to prove. The verdict was for $300 compensatory and $200 punitive damages.

Dodge & Johnson and J. E. Williams, for appellant. Murphy & Mehaffy, for appellee.

WOOD, J. (after stating the facts).

We will consider the questions in the order presented by appellant's counsel.

1. It is contended that the cause should have been reversed because the jury failed to observe the rule of preponderance of the testimony. When the cause reaches this forum it is no longer a question of preponderance, but only of the legal sufficiency of the evidence to support the verdict. Railroad Co. v. Kilpatrick, 67 Ark. 47, 54 S. W. 971; Catlett v. Railway Co., 57 Ark. 461, 21 S. W. 1062, 38 Am. St. Rep. 254.

2. Appellant objects to the following instruction: "If plaintiff went to defendant's depot on the day mentioned in the complaint, to take passage on defendant's train, and at that time the weather was such as to require a fire in the waiting room to make it comfortable, it was defendant's duty to build and keep a fire in said waiting room; and, if it failed to do so, and plaintiff suffered in consequence of defendant's failure to build and keep such fire, your verdict will be for the plaintiff." It was the duty of railroads, independent of the statute of March 31, 1899, to provide reasonable accommodations for passengers at their stations. McDonald v. Railroad Co., 26 Iowa, 138, 95 Am. Dec. 114. This duty requires the exercise of ordinary care to see that station houses are provided with reasonable appointments for the safety and essential comfort of passengers, or those intending to become passengers, while they are waiting for trains. Caterham R. Co. v. London, B. & S. C. Ry. Co., 87 E. C. L. 410; 1 Fet. Carr. §§ 249, 250; Railway Co. v. Cornelius (Tex. Civ. App.) 30 S. W. 720; Hutch. Carr. §§ 516-521, inclusive; 2 Wood, Ry. Law, § 1338; Elliott, R. R. § 1590. By the exercise of such care as ordinary prudence would suggest for reasonable comfort, it could hardly occur that a waiting room, in midwinter, would be devoid of the means necessary to make it comfortably warm at the times when such rooms are needed to accommodate those intending to become passengers. A failure to provide such means is, therefore, at least prima facie evidence of negligence. It is insisted that the instruction "eliminated all question of diligence and negligence," and made the company an "insurer against the consequences of not having a fire in the waiting room." But the company maintains that it was not negligent, because it built the fire in the waiting room as requested. It is not complaining of any latent defect or unforeseen exigency which ordinary care could not have anticipated and prevented. It could not have been prejudiced, therefore, by the instruction in the form given. Moreover, it did not request the court to declare the law to meet the objection it urges here to the instruction. Giving it as requested was not reversible error. Railway Co. v. Barnett, 65 Ark. 255, 45 S. W. 550.

3. The court also gave the following: "If plaintiff went to defendant's depot to take passage on defendant's train, and defendant's agent knowingly permitted it to be locked, or knowingly permitted it to remain locked after being notified that it was locked, so that plaintiff was restrained from going in and out, your verdict will be for the plaintiff." "A person," says Mr. Wood, "who is put in charge of a station by a railway company, has apparently all the power and authority...