Alabama City G. & A. Ry. Co. v. Cox

55 So. 909, 173 Ala. 629, 1911 Ala. LEXIS 296
CourtSupreme Court of Alabama
DecidedJune 17, 1911
StatusPublished
Cited by4 cases

This text of 55 So. 909 (Alabama City G. & A. Ry. Co. v. Cox) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Alabama primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Alabama City G. & A. Ry. Co. v. Cox, 55 So. 909, 173 Ala. 629, 1911 Ala. LEXIS 296 (Ala. 1911).

Opinion

MAYFIELD, J.

The appellee, a woman about 60 or 65 years of age, sued appellant, a common carrier of passengers.

Each count of the complaint upon which the trial was had, as last amended, alleged the relation of passenger and common carrier between plaintiff and defendant, and therefrom a duty on the part of the latter to carry plaintiff as a passenger, in accordance with a contract alleged, from the city of Gadsden to a station upon its line known as Car Works station; and then alleged a breach of that duty, in that the carrier failed to stop its car at the station of the plaintiff’s destination, but carried her by and beyond it some 40 yards or more, and there put her off; that the plaintiff, in attempting to find her way back to the station, fell over a switch of defendant’s railway, and thereby injured, herself; and .that later, while still on her way back to the station, along the defendant’s railway track, she stepped into an open culvert or trestle, thereby severely injuring herself. Each count contains the usual and appropriate averments as to the injuries and damages suffered by the plaintiff; and each alleges that such injuries and dam' ages were the proximate result of the negligence of the defendant’s agents or servants in charge, of the car, in failing to put her off at her station, and carrying her-[634]*634such, a distance beyond it in the night time. Each count of the complaint, as last amended, stated a good cause of action, and was not subject to any grounds of demurrer assigned as error.

It was not necessary that the complaint should allege that the defendant’s conductor was cognizant that the plaintiffff did not know of a safe route from the point where she alighted back to the station; nor that the defendant’s servants or agents had reason to believe that the plaintiff would encounter danger at the place and time, and in the manner, alleged. It was the duty of the defendant to put the plaintiff off at her station, and not some 40 yards beyond it.

It was not necessary for the complaint to negative the fact that there was an open, obvious, and safe way, which the plaintiff could have traveled, from the point where she was put off, back to the station. If this were so, it would be proper matter for a plea, and not for the complaint to negative.

The complaint averred the advanced age and feeble conditions of the plaintiff, and that it was in the nighttime that she was carried some 40 yards past her station; this béing an actionable breach of duty on the part of the defendant toward the plaintiff. If the defendant’s servants or agents in charge or control of the car on this occasion had actual knowledge of the plaintiff’s infirmities, and of the danger which she would probably incur in consequence of the breach, such fact would be proper to go to the amount of the damages recoverable; but it is not necessary to the recovery of any damages, and is therefore not necessary to the statement of a good cause of action.

“Carriers must be equally careful not to pass beyond the alighting platform or station, and thus to require or mhke it necessary for the passenger to alight without returning to it. * * * And where the passen[635]*635ger is required, either expressly or impliedly, to leave the car without assistance, and to find his way unaided back to the station, during which time he received injury, the carrier is liable. This is held to be true, even though the passenger is carried upon a freight train. Much less does the carrier discharge his duty where he puts the passenger off away from the depot, at night, in a strange place, and requires him thence to return to the place at which he should have been discharged.” —2 Hutchinson on Carriers, § 1126.

“As a general rule, it may be said that the relation of carrier and passenger does not cease with the arrival •of the train at the passenger’s destination, but continues until the passenger has had a reasonable time and opportunity to safely alight from the train at the place provided by the carrier for the discharge of passengers, and to leave the carrier’s premises in the customary manner.” — Ib., § 1016.

“Where a passenger signaled a street car conductor to put her off at a given stopping place, and the conductor understood the signal, but failed to put her off at the proper station, held to be culpable negligence, and that if the plaintiff, while attempting to cross the track to go to her home, fell and suffered injury on account of being put off at the wrong place, the carrier would be liable.” — Melton v. Railway Co., 153 Ala. 95, 45 South. 151, 16 L. R. A. (N. S.) 467.

“Passengers are entitled to be carried to their destination, and carriers have no right to put them off the •train before reaching it.” — L. & N. R. R. Co. v. Quinn, 146 Ala. 330, 39 South. 756.

i “It is the duty of the conductor of a common carrier to take up the tickets within a reasonable time after leaving a station, and when he takes up the ticket to a ■flag station, it is notice to him that the passenger de[636]*636sires to get off at such station.” — L. & N. R. R. Co. v. Seale, 160 Ala. 584, 49 South. 323.

“It is the duty of common carriers to stop their trains at their stations long enough to allow passengers a reasonable timie in which to alight. What is a sufficient time is usually a question for the jury.”- — Dilburn v. L. & N. R. R. Co., 156 Ala. 28, 47 South. 210.

“It is the duty of common carriers, such as street car companies, to exercise the highest degree of care in stopping their cars for passengers to alight, and in providing a reasonably safe place for them to alight.”— Mobile Light Co. v. Walsh, 146 Ala. 295, 40 South. 560.

“Common carriers are liable in damages to passengers who are carried beyond their destination without fault on the part of the passenger, whether resulting from the negligence of the carrier or a breach of his contract.” — North Ala. Co. v. Daniel, 158 Ala. 414, 48 South. 50.

Whether the car stopped at the station on this occasion for the reception or discharge of passengers was a disputed question, and the defendant was not entitled to the affirmative charge on the theory that the. car was stopped at the plaintiff’s destination. The evidence is without dispute that it did stop beyond the station (though the exact distance is in dispute), that the plaintiff was put off the car beyond her station, at night, that she was aged and feeble, and that she was injured in the manner alleged, while attempting to find her way back to the station.

It was not necessary that the complaint should allege that the appellee’s eyesight was defective, or that she could not see at night, nor for the complaint to allege, nor the evidence to show, that this affliction was apparent to the conductor, in order to state a cause of action. As before stated, such allegations or proof might be proper or necessary as to punitive damages, [637]*637and therefore go to the amount of the recovery, but not to the absolute right of recovery, as is insisted by the appellant in this case.

If the plaintiff pursued a dangerous way hack to the station, when a safe path was obvious and open to her selection, this would be matter proper for a plea of contributory negligence, and it was not necessary for the plaintiff to negative it in her pleadings, nor was she required to prove such negative matter, in order to entitle her to recover.

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Bluebook (online)
55 So. 909, 173 Ala. 629, 1911 Ala. LEXIS 296, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/alabama-city-g-a-ry-co-v-cox-ala-1911.