Wardwell v. Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Ry. Co.
| Citation | 46 Minn. 514 |
| Court | Supreme Court of Minnesota (US) |
| Decision Date | 07 July 1891 |
| Parties | HOMER E. WARDWELL <I>vs.</I> CHICAGO, MILWAUKEE & ST. PAUL RAILWAY COMPANY. |
F. W. Root and W. H. Norris, for appellant.
Amos Coggswell and Sawyer & Sawyer, for respondent.
The plaintiff, without procuring a ticket, though he had full opportunity to do so, boarded a passenger train of defendant at Faribault to go to Owatonna. The ticket fare was 46, the train fare 56, cents. Soon after the train started, the fare collector came to plaintiff and asked him where he was going, and, on being told to Owatonna, said the fare was 50 cents, which plaintiff then paid him. A few minutes after, and before the train reached Walcott, the first station from Faribault, the collector came again to plaintiff, and told him he had made an error in the amount of the fare, and insisted that he should pay the other 6 cents, and, on plaintiff refusing, told him unless he paid it he would put him off the train. Plaintiff still refused, and on the arrival of the train at Walcott, plaintiff persisting in his refusal, the collector put him off, and, after he was off, returned to him the difference between the 50 cents and the fare from Faribault to Walcott.
Assuming (what, in view of the defendant's regulations posted up in its passenger stations and passenger cars, can hardly be assumed) that the collector had authority to accept for the fare any less than the 56 cents, and waive the company's right to full train fare, the receipt by the collector, through mistake, for the full fare, of less than the fare, did not amount to such waiver. The collector had a right, on discovering the mistake, to require the plaintiff, certainly within a reasonable time, on informing him of the error, to pay the remainder of the train fare, just as any one, on discovering a mistake in payment, may, within a reasonable time, require its correction. And it was the duty of the plaintiff, on being informed of the error, to pay the remainder of the full train fare, as demanded by the collector. Nor was the collector's retention of the money paid him by plaintiff (still assuming his authority to waive any part of the train fare) until the arrival of the train at Walcott, and while the question whether the plaintiff would pay the remaining 6 cents or leave the train was an open one, (for, notwithstanding his previous refusal, the plaintiff might, until the arrival at Walcott, where the train was to stop without regard to his matter, still pay and secure the right to go to his intended destination,) such a waiver, and especially as the collector insisted on payment of full train fare, and informed plaintiff that he must pay or leave the train. The rule laid down in Du Laurans v. First Div., etc., R. Co., 15 Minn. 29, (49,) to the effect that when a passenger tenders in good faith, on the train, the ticket fare as full fare to his place of destination, and the conductor takes and retains it, he thereby waives the right to require the passenger to still pay the difference between the ticket and train fare, is ...
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