St. Louis, I. M. & S. Ry. Co. v. Mynott
| Decision Date | 06 May 1907 |
| Parties | ST. LOUIS, I. M. & S. RY. CO. v. MYNOTT. |
| Court | Arkansas Supreme Court |
Appeal from Circuit Court, Crittenden County; A. B. Shafer, Special Judge.
Action by James R. Mynott against the St. Louis, Iron Mountain & Southern Railway Company. Judgment for plaintiff. Defendant appeals. Affirmed.
T. M. Mehaffy and J. E. Williams, for appellant. Allen Hughes, for appellee.
The plaintiff instituted this action against defendant railway company to recover damages on account of alleged wrongful ejection from defendant's train while he was a passenger thereon en route from Memphis, Tenn., to Crawfordsville, Ark. He testified, in substance, that he boarded the train at Memphis, and paid his fare to Crawfordsville; that he is a white man, and went into the coach set apart for colored people for the purpose of delivering some packages to a colored man; and that, as soon as he delivered the packages, he turned to leave the coach, when one of defendant's trainmen accosted him, and in insulting language demanded that he leave the car at once, and immediately set upon him, beat and maltreated him, and forcibly ejected him from the train at a station several miles short of his destination. Several other witnesses corroborated his statement. The defendant introduced witnesses whose testimony tended to show that the plaintiff refused to leave the coach for colored persons, and, when requested to do so by the trainmen, made a demonstration as if to draw a pistol, resisted removal from the coach, and fought the trainmen and caused them to eject him forcibly. They testified, further, that plaintiff was grossly intoxicated, and that they offered to allow him to continue his journey if he would go into the coach set apart for white passengers. They denied that plaintiff was maltreated in any way by the trainmen, or any one else. The plaintiff denied that he was intoxicated or refused to leave the colored coach, or that he did anything to provoke the trainmen into assaulting or ejecting him. There was a sharp and irreconcilable conflict in the testimony, and the issue was settled by the jury in plaintiff's favor. We cannot say that the evidence does not support the verdict. If the servants of defendant in charge of the train wrongfully and without provocation assaulted the plaintiff and ejected him from the train while he was a passenger thereon, the defendant is liable for the damages resulting from the injury. The defendant, as a public carrier of passengers, insures the safety of its passengers from such wrongful acts of its servants in charge of trains. St. L., I. M. & S. Ry. Co. v. Dowglallo (Ark.) 101 S. W. 412. The instructions of the court upon this question were more favorable to defendant than it had the right to ask, but it cannot complain of this. The defendant is responsible to plaintiff not only for the wrongful ejection from the train, but also for the alleged unlawful and unprovoked assault. The trainmen, of course, had the right, and it was their duty, to require the plaintiff to leave the coach set apart for colored passengers; but they had no right to assault him, or to use unnecessary force in ejecting him from the coach. If his testimony is to be believed, he went into that coach to deliver packages to a colored passenger, stayed there only a few moments, and was in the act of leaving when he was assaulted. This, if true, made out a clear case against the company for damages.
The defendant pleaded the one-year statute of limitations, which plea was stricken out by the court. The action was commenced within three years, but not within one year after the cause of action arose. The relationship of carrier and passenger which gave rise to the liability of the railway company to plaintiff for the...
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