The Chicago v. Flagg

• Decision Date: 31 January 1867
• Citation: 1867 WL 5043,92 Am.Dec. 133,43 Ill. 364
• Parties: THE CHICAGO AND ALTON RAILROAD COMPANYv.EUGENE FLAGG.
• Court: Illinois Supreme Court

43 Ill. 364

1867 WL 5043 (Ill.)

92 Am.Dec. 133

THE CHICAGO AND ALTON RAILROAD COMPANY

v.EUGENE FLAGG.

Supreme Court of Illinois.

January Term, 1867.

OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE

APPEAL from the Circuit Court of McLean county; the Hon. JOHN M. SCOTT, Judge, presiding.

The facts in this case are fully stated in the opinion of the court.

Messrs. WILLIAMS & BURR, for the appellant.

Mr. J. MCNULTA and W. H. HANNA, for the appellee. Mr. JUSTICE LAWRENCE delivered the opinion of the Court:

This was an action on the case brought by the appellee against the railway company for wrongfully expelling him from one of its trains. Being desirous of traveling a short distance on the road, he entered what is called the caboose car, attached to a freight train, without a ticket. From the conversation which subsequently took place between him and the conductor, as drawn out by the defendant's counsel on the cross-examination of a witness, it appears he was unable to procure a ticket because the ticket office was closed. When his ticket was demanded on the train he offered to pay his fare, and also offered to give the conductor ten dollars to be kept by him until a ticket could be procured at the next station.

The conductor replied that he was forbidden by the rules of the road to receive money for fares, and should he do so he might lose his place. The train stopped at a water tank about a quarter of a mile from a station called Lanndale, and the conductor there required the plaintiff to leave the train. No resistance was made by him, and no violence or insult offered by the conductor. The jury gave the plaintiff a verdict of one hundred dollars, for which the court rendered judgment.

It appears from the record that, although this was a freight train, yet it regularly carried passengers, and was held out to the public as so doing. The company itself put in evidence a printed notice, with certain regulations in regard to the carriage of passengers on freight trains, and forbidding conductors to carry them unless provided with tickets in advance. It was therefore a common carrier of passengers by this train as well as by its regular passenger trains, and would have no more right to expel a traveler, wantonly and without cause, from one train than from the other.

It is urged, that the company must have the power to make reasonable rules for the government of its trains. Undoubtedly, and if a company deem it advisable to require tickets to be purchased before taking passage on certain classes of trains, its authority to do so must be conceded. If its rules in this respect are knowingly disregarded, a passenger may be required to leave the train at any regular station, but only at such stations, as decided in the C. B. & Q. R. R. v. Parks, 18 Ill. 465. The willful neglect to comply with the rules in this matter would be like a refusal to pay the fare, and could place the passenger in no worse position. But, when the company requires tickets to be purchased at the station, it must furnish convenient facilities to the public by keeping open the office a reasonable time in advance of the hour fixed by the time-table for the departure of the train. Should it fail to do this, a person desiring to take passage would have the right to enter the train and be carried to his place of destination by payment of the regular fare to the conductor. To permit a company to complain of a violation of its own rules necessitated by the negligence of its own agents, would be absurd. If, then, as is fairly inferable from the evidence, the plaintiff was prevented from buying a ticket by the absence of the ticket...