St. Louis, A. & T. Ry. Co. v. Hoover

• Decision Date: 14 June 1890
• Citation: 13 S.W. 1092
• Parties: ST. LOUIS, A. & T. RY. CO. <I>v.</I> HOOVER.
• Court: Arkansas Supreme Court

Page 1092

13 S.W. 1092

ST. LOUIS, A. & T. RY. CO.v.

HOOVER.

Supreme Court of Arkansas.

June 14, 1890.

Appeal from circuit court, Columbia county; C. W. SMITH, Judge.

Suit in the Columbia circuit court for $223 for services rendered as a physician and surgeon, and for board of one James McGregor, at the request of defendant, through and by one Keith, who was conductor and agent of the company, and Col. Ben Johnson and P. H. H., agents of the company, in October, 1886.

Montgomery & Moore and Sam H. West, for appellant. H. P. Smeadham and Atkinson & England, for appellee.

HEMINGWAY, J.

Neither a conductor, station agent, nor solicitor of a railway company is authorized, in ordinary cases, to contract for surgical attendance upon a passenger or employe injured in operating the trains of the railway company, so as to bind the company. Railroad Co. v. Rodrigues, 47 Ill. 188; Tucker v. Railroad Co., 54 Mo. 177; Brown v. Railroad Co., 67 Mo. 122; Railroad Co. v. Reisner, 18 Kan. 458; Cooper v. Railroad Co., 6 Hun, 276; Railway Co. v. McVay, 98 Ind. 391; Cox v. Railway Co., 3 Exch. 268. It has been held that, where such injury is done at a point distant from the chief offices of the company, and there is urgent necessity for the employment of a surgeon to render professional services to an injured employe, the conductor, if he is the highest agent of the company on the ground, has authority to bind the corporation by the employment of a surgeon to render the services required by the emergency. Railway Co. v. McMurray, 98 Ind. 358. The authority existing in such cases is exceptional. It grows out of the present emergency, and the absence, and consequent inability to act, of the railway's managing agent; its existence cannot extend beyond the causes from which it sprang. This exception states the law most favorably for the appellee, and we do not hold that it does not state it too favorably; but, conceding it to be correct, his cause must fail. Neither of the subordinate agents engaged the appellee to attend the injured party during the emergency, if there was one. The conductor notified the appellee that he could not bind the company for such services without instructions. He communicated with the general agent, and after such communication, if at all, engaged the appellee. After the general agent was advised of the injury, and put himself in communication with the conductor on the subject, the emergency, which alone could have given the conductor...