Yazoo & M.V.R. Co. v. Williams

• Decision Date: 11 December 1905
• Citation: 87 Miss. 344,39 So. 489
• Parties: YAZOO & MISSISSIPPI VALLEY RAILROAD COMPANY v. PETER WILLIAMS
• Court: Mississippi Supreme Court

39 So. 489

87 Miss. 344

YAZOO & MISSISSIPPI VALLEY RAILROAD COMPANY v. PETER WILLIAMS

Supreme Court of Mississippi

December 11, 1905

FROM the circuit court of Sharkey county, HON. GEORGE ANDERSON Judge.

Williams the appellee, was plaintiff in the court below; the railroad company, the appellant, was defendant there. From a judgment in plaintiff's favor the defendant appealed to the supreme court. The facts are stated in the opinion of the court.

Affirmed.

Mayes &amp Longstreet, and Charles N. Burch, for appellant.

The error in the third instruction is this: It is couched in the alternative. It says, in effect, that the plaintiff is entitled to recover if the jury believe from the evidence either that the plaintiff, while pursuing his journey, was set upon by the conductor and insulted and violently handled or was wrongfully ejected from the train upon which he had a right to be. Here there is a distinct antithesis made by the instruction. Under the first branch of it the whole case is made to turn upon the bare proposition that the conductor insulted and violently handled the plaintiff, without any reference whatever to the question as to whether in so insulting and violently handling the plaintiff the conductor had such provocation or had such reasonable cause to apprehend a personal assault upon himself as would excuse him in so doing. It is perfectly clear that that was the effect of the instruction. It is true that in the second proposition the word "wrongfully" is used; but that word is by every rule of construction, and by the common understanding of the English language, attributed solely to the following proposition about the plaintiff's ejection from the train, and there is no corresponding word as to the first branch of the proposition. In short, the jury were told that the plaintiff was entitled to recover if either one of two things happened: (1) if the defendant insulted and violently handled plaintiff (and this without any qualifying word as to whether defendant had provocation or excuse, or no); (2) if the plaintiff was wrongfully ejected.

If the instruction had stood upon the second branch alone, then it would have required the jury to find the second proposition to be true--that is, that the man had been wrongfully ejected. But it does not so stand; and under this instruction the plaintiff was entitled to recover if the jury should find that he had been insulted and violently handled, and that without any reference to the question whether the conductor had justification or excuse and without any reference to the question whether he had been wrongfully ejected or not.

Now, the instructions authorizing the imposition of damages must properly set forth the facts which justify such imposition, and if the plaintiff is so negligent as to frame his instructions so as to authorize the jury to find a verdict in his favor under conditions that would not justify such finding, there is reversible error.

The error in this case is all the more serious because the question at issue before the jury was as to whether the conductor had or had not received such provocation and excuse by the conduct of the plaintiff. Yet this instruction eliminates that consideration from the case absolutely.

Compare instruction three with instruction one, given by the court for the plaintiff. In number one the law was correctly set forth. But having correctly set forth the law, the plaintiff was not satisfied, apparently, but he wanted to get a still closer grip upon a verdict against the defendant; so he stuck in this third instruction, and left out of it the very facts which, if the jury had found in favor of the railroad company, would have justified a verdict for the defendant.

By this course the plaintiff, getting this third instruction, by his own act eliminates from the case all of the effective force of his own first instruction. If he were entitled to recover under the third, his first instruction was utterly useless, and imposed upon himself a burden which it was unnecessary for him to meet. To put the proposition differently, if the law is correctly stated in his own first instruction, then it is incorrectly stated in the third, because the third omits certain obligations which by his first instruction he admits he was called to meet. Potter v. Railroad Co., 46 Ia. 402; Gamble v. Mullin, 74 Ia. 99; Jackson Township v. Sherra, 8 Ind. App., 330; Bridge Co. v. Eastman, 7 Ind. App., 514; Hill v. Aultman, 68 Ia. 630.

The court also erred in giving for the plaintiff the second instruction. That instruction is on the subject of punitory damages. The vices in it are two. First, it authorizes the jury to find punitive damages on the sole condition that they find for the plaintiff, and then states that on that condition they may, in addition to the actual damages, find punitive damages. It fails to instruct the jury that they must, by their verdict and from the evidence, ascertain the fact that the plaintiff did suffer actual damages; and it fails to instruct the jury as to the principles of law on which alone they are authorized to find punitive damages. It puts the whole right of the jury to bring in exemplary damages on the bald proposition that they find for the plaintiff. This is error. The jury should have been more intelligently and properly instructed.

Moreover, the jury were instructed that in finding exemplary damages they were authorized to bring in "such sum as they may see fit, not to exceed the sum demanded." This is the exact language of the instruction which was condemned and held to be reversible in the case of Railroad Co. v. Smith, 82 Miss. 657 (s.c., 35 So. 168). The only question, therefore, open is whether the same rule applies to an instruction for the bringing in of exemplary damages. We submit that it does. It is true that if the legal conditions are met the jury have a discretion whether they will or will not bring in a verdict for exemplary damages, and the court has no right to instruct them that they shall bring in such a verdict. But the broad discretion which they have as to whether they will or will not bring in a verdict for such damages does not import the idea that in fixing the amount of their verdict they have an arbitrary power. The damages should be assessed in the exercise of a sound, honest, and intelligent discretion in the light of the facts disclosed by the evidence, and the jury should have been properly instructed so to find. Under the language of this instruction the jury would have been fully authorized to bring in a verdict for a billion dollars, if they saw proper so to do. 12 Am. & Eng. Ency. Law, 54.

McLaurin, Armistead & Brien, for appellee.

The first proposition in the instruction, to the effect that plaintiff was entitled to damages if the jury believed that he was set upon by the conductor and insulted and violently handled, provided only for damages in favor of plaintiff if the jury believed that both conditions existed--that is, that the plaintiff was insulted and violently handled by the conductor. So we say, in this connection, it is not necessary to apply the word "wrongful" to these conditions, because any insult is essentially wrongful. In other words, if the conductor insulted and violently handled Williams, he, Williams, had a right of action. It would not necessarily be so if the instruction had left out the word "insult," because, as to violence standing alone and without insult, there may be some justification for violent handling.

Appellant says that the two propositions in one instruction constitute a complete antithesis. We submit that this conclusion is wholly incorrect. The meaning of "antithesis," according to the Standard Dictionary, is this: "A figure of speech in which strongly contrasted phrases or sentiments are balanced against each other." No such condition exists in this instruction, which simply told the jury that defendant was liable, on the one hand, if the conductor insulted and violently handled plaintiff, and, on the other hand, if he wrongfully ejected him from the train. Either condition might have existed without the other, or both might have existed at the same time, and the evidence is ample in justifying the jury in the belief that, either one or the other, or both, did exist.

Furthermore, the court will construe this instruction along with the other instructions. It has frequently been announced, and is elementary law in this state, that all of the instructions in a case must be construed together. This rule is forcibly announced in Railroad Co. v. Smith, 82 Miss. 657, cited in appellant's brief, wherein it is said: "The instructions for plaintiff and defendant should always be construed together, and, when so considered, should correctly announce the law and constitute one harmonious whole." Railroad Co. v. Field, 46 Miss. 573; Insurance Co. v. Francis, 52 Miss. 457.

When all of the instructions in this case are construed together, the further argument of this third instruction seems to us to be wholly unnecessary. Read the first instruction for plaintiff, which appellant admits is correct; then read the third and fourth instructions given for defendant. After reading these together, could any one imagine that the jury were misled by the strained and highly technical construction appellant has sought to put on said third instruction? Even if it be subject to the criticisms made against it, could it have done any harm in this case, where the plaintiff's testimony certainly fully warranted the result?

Argued orally by Leroy Percy, and E. Mayes, for appellant, and by A. A. Armistead, for appellee.

OPINION

TRULY, J.

The facts of this case as presented by the story of appellee are as follows: Appellee, having purchased a...