State v. Hungerford

• Decision Date: 18 June 1888
• Citation: 39 Minn. 6
• Parties: STATE OF MINNESOTA <I>vs.</I> HARVEY HUNGERFORD.
• Court: Minnesota Supreme Court

Page 6

39 Minn. 6

STATE OF MINNESOTA vs. HARVEY HUNGERFORD.

Supreme Court of Minnesota.

June 18, 1888.

Appeal by defendant from an order of the district court for Scott county, Edson, J., presiding, refusing a new trial after a conviction of assault in the third degree.

H. J. Peck, for appellant.

Moses E. Clapp, Attorney General, for the State.

GILFILLAN, C. J.

Prosecution for an assault. The alleged assault consisted in the defendant, who was conductor of a passenger train on the Minneapolis & St. Louis Railway, taking hold of Nicolin, the complaining witness, who was a passenger on the train, for the purpose of putting him off because he refused to pay the fare demanded by defendant. That a conductor may, using only the force reasonably necessary, (and no excess is claimed in this case,) remove from the cars a passenger who refuses to pay the proper fare when demanded by the conductor, is beyond question. The fare on this railroad, from Jordan to Carver, to make which journey Nicolin had got upon the train, was, when paid on the train, 33 cents; but a regulation of the company made in all cases a deduction of 10 cents from what we may call the train rates of fare, to passengers purchasing tickets at the station, before entering the cars. Nicolin had not purchased a ticket. The defendant demanded of him 33 cents; he tendered 25 cents, and refused to pay any more; whereupon defendant took hold of him to put him off. So the case turns on the defendant's right to require the payment of the 33 cents fare. That a railroad company may charge more to passengers who pay their fare on the train than it does for tickets purchased before entering the train (the difference, of course, being a reasonable one, and no one could say that in this case it was unreasonable) was affirmed by this court in the case of Du Laurans v. First Div., etc., R. Co., 15 Minn. 29, (49.) To the right of the company to make that discrimination is, however, attached this condition: that it give to persons desiring to travel on its road a reasonable opportunity to purchase tickets, which includes the having a reasonably convenient place for the sale of tickets, and a person there to sell them for such reasonable time previous to the departure of the train as to enable persons to procure tickets, and enter the train, before it starts.

Ordinarily, the question whether the time thus given for the purchase of tickets is reasonable, is for the jury. The jury in this case must have...