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

• Decision Date: 06 April 1903
• Citation: 82 Miss. 120,33 So. 970
• Parties: YAZOO & MISSISSIPPI VALLEY RAILROAD COMPANY v. DANIEL WHITE
• Court: Mississippi Supreme Court

33 So. 970

82 Miss. 120

YAZOO & MISSISSIPPI VALLEY RAILROAD COMPANY v. DANIEL WHITE

Supreme Court of Mississippi

April 6, 1903

FROM the circuit court of Warren county. HON. GEORGE ANDERSON Judge.

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

Reversed and remanded.

Smith Hirsh & Landau and Mayes & Harris, for appellant.

The court erred in refusing the instruction asked for by the defendant.

The court had already given an instruction for the plaintiff, that, if they believed that the failure to stop the train by the engineer was wilful, reckless, or capricious on his part, that they could find punitive damages, and the defendant was certainly entitled to ask, and have given, an instruction, that, if the defendant engineer did not act maliciously, or deliberately, or wilfully, or wantonly, in not stopping the train, they could only find actual damages.

Green & Green and McLaurin & Thames, for appellee.

Whether the conduct of the engineer was wanton, or wilful, or capricious, was peculiarly a question of fact for the jury.

If the engineer saw the signal and ran by the station without stopping, then this was such gross negligence and reckless disregard of consequences as to justify punitive damages. The instruction wholly omits the imposition of punitive damages for "recklessness" or, "in the absence of intention, a negligence so gross as to evince a reckless disregard of consequences." Chicago, Etc., R. Co. v. Scurr, 59 Miss. 461; Wilson v. New Orleans, Etc., R. Co., 63 Miss. 356.

Argued orally by Murray F. Smith, for appellant, and Marcellus Green, for appellee.

OPINION

PRICE, J.

On Sunday, August 11, 1901, White purchased a round trip ticket from Vicksburg to Glass Station, on appellant's railroad entitling him to transportation, and in the afternoon of the same day he was at Glass Station in readiness to begin his return trip to Vicksburg. When defendant's passenger train No. 22 approached the station, White flagged the train with an umbrella and a shoe box, which he waved across the track. The train was about one-half a mile away when White began flagging it. The whistle blew, but the train ran beyond the station from two hundred to four hundred and fifty yards, where it stopped to put off two passengers. Glass Station is ten miles south of Vicksburg, and White worked on a dredge boat, and it was necessary for him to be in Vicksburg the next morning, or perhaps lose his job. Failing to get on board the train, he walked to Vicksburg, arriving there between ten and eleven o'clock at night; and it was a rainy evening. The engineer testified that he was at his post of duty, keeping a lookout; that Glass was a flag station, and when he reached the proper point he whistled for flags, and saw none; that there was no signal given to stop; that if he had been flagged, and knowingly ignored it, he would likely lose his job. The...