Bussman v. Western Transit Co.

61 N.Y. St. Rep. 697
CourtSuperior Court of Buffalo
DecidedJuly 15, 1894
StatusPublished

This text of 61 N.Y. St. Rep. 697 (Bussman v. Western Transit Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Superior Court of Buffalo primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Bussman v. Western Transit Co., 61 N.Y. St. Rep. 697 (N.Y. Super. Ct. 1894).

Opinion

Titus, Ch. J.

—After the evidence for both plaintiff and defendant had all been given, the court, on motion of the defendant, nonsuited the plaintiff and gave judgment against him for costs, on the ground, as stated in the motion, of a failure to make out a case, and that no damages had been proved.

The defendant is a transportation company, and during the summer of 1893 was engaged in carrying passengers to different lake ports and to the World’s Fair at Chicago. In its pamphlets and circulars the defendant advertised to take passengers to Chicago for nineteen dollars, special tourist rates. It is stated that these rates include meals and berths in stateroom, and for further information the would-be tourist is directed to apply to the agent of the company, or to Daniel H. Wilcox, general passenger agent, at Buffalo, H. Y. It is further stated : “ To those intending to visit the World’s Fair the special attractions of this beautiful lake trip to Chicago are presented. We make close connections at the Sault St. Marie, at the head of Lake Huron, with a fine fleet of steamers of the Lake Michigan & Lake Superior Transportation Company. A cool, delightful and healthy trip on the great inland seas. Ho dust. Airy and comfortable staterooms. ” These attractive circulars are made more or less so by a flourish of conspicuous type, which readily catches the eye and attracts the attention of the traveler caring to escape the discomforts of a trip to Chicago in the dust and heat of the summer months.

The plaintiff, a practicing physician, having about the first of August made up his mind to suspend temporarily the practice of his profession and to visit the great World’s Fair at Chicago, went to the numerous ticket offices on Exchange street and procured pamphlets of the different transportation companies, among them the circular and pamphlets issued by the defendant at its office in this city and from which we have quoted. After reading the circular and sufficiently reflecting on the matter, on the sixteenth of August he called at the office of the agent of the defendant, Mr. Wilcox, and found Mr. Doty representing the company, whom he informed that he had “ fully considered the matter of going to [698]*698Chicago and had concluded to take the defendant’s line in preference to the railroad because he wanted a comfortable trip; he could not sleep on a car, and, bj' taking the defendant’s line, he could get rest and recreation at the same time and arrive in Chicago in good condition.” Mr. Doty, the agent, after the matter had been fully explained to him by the doctor, said he thought the idea was a good one, and the doctor was so well satisfied with the plan of his trip5 that, after considering it another night, he went the following day and told Doty “ he had made up his mind positively to go to Chicago,” and, after some further talk with Doty, in which the doctor was informed that two ladies had engaged the stateroom he wanted, but the accommodating agent would put them in another and less desirable room and assign that room to the doctor, and after the doctor’s chivalric protest that “ he did not like to drive these ladies out of their room,” he concluded to take the room and bought two tickets, for which he paid thirty-eight dollars.

The doctor with his wife presumably had a pleasant trip, as we hear of no complaint from him until the following Tuesday morning, between six and seven o’clock, when the Empire State landed at the “ Soo.”

He says he made inquiry of the purser or captain where the boat which was to take them to Chicago was, and the City of Duluth being pointed out to him, he got aboard of her and went to the ticket office and “ found it closed.” “ There were two ladies that came down from Buffalo on the Empire State going to the World’s Fair." Whether these were the same two ladies whose stateroom the doctor got from the agent in Buffalo does not appear. ’He says he then went back and got his breakfast, and again went to tile ticket office of the City of Duluth, and found the agent arranging for rooms with a gentleman and two ladies, who were told by the agent that it would be impossible to accommodate them with rooms, and from that the plaintiff inferred that he could not get a room. However, he handed his ticket to the agent, who looked at the doctor and smiled, and said : “ I will see. what I can do for you.” Then the doctor walked away, probably in the full belief, induced by that smile of the ticket agent, that he would be satisfactorily provided with a room. After-some time spent in seeing the town, he got on board and started for Chicago. About noon, according to the doctor’s story, he went down to the purser, when the following conversation took place: “Says I, ‘Well, how about a room for me on the boat.’ ‘Well,’ he says, ‘I cannot give you any; you haven’t got any ’ (of which fact the doctor was undoubtedly fully aware), and said: ‘ That’s a nice note,’ says I; ‘ I paid for a first class fare and I believed that I was going to have a stateroom, and I paid for one and I want it.’ ‘Well,’ he says, T cannot give you any; I cannot turn a person Out of a room and put you in.’ Says I, ‘That isn’t my lookout; that is your lookout.’ We talked a little while together, and says I, ‘When I get back to Buffalo I am going to the Western Transit Company and raise hell,’ ” which he on his arrival in Buffalo proceeded to do.

[699]*699I have quoted thus largely from the plaintiff’s testimony to show his understanding and interpretation of the contract which he had entered into with the defendant and of his persistent intention of enforcing it, even at the risk of serious consequence to all concerned.

About eleven o’clock, when all had become weary of looking at the stars and of hearing the swash of the water against the sides of the sturdy vessel, the doctor descended into the cabin and saw the servants carrying mattresses and passengers selecting cots, when he met the purser “and asked him, says I, ‘Can’t I have one of those mattresses and put in the gangway there ?’ He says (I quote from the testimony) ‘Yes, you can do that if you want your head smashed in.’ Says I, ‘I will look out for my head all right.”’ He says he took the mattress and placed it in the gangway between the main saloon and the deck. He says he preferred this busy, breezy place to lying with the crowd in the saloon. Evidently the doctor’s wife was not of the same opinion, or fascinated with the idea of a night’s rest in the gangway, where she was liable to have her head “smashed in,” for, after about half an hour, she left him, saying she perferred sitting in a chair to lying on the floor. The doctor’s efforts to get rest do not appear to have been very successful, for he tells us he did not get any rest or sleep that night and fared no better the next.

On his return to Buffalo he called on Mr. Doty, with the evident intent of making good his promise to the agent at the “Soo,” and told him how he fared. Mr. Doty was very sorry that such a thing should happen to the doctor, and said he would tell Mr. Wilcox all about it, and as he was going up to the “Soo” he would have a chance to talk it over with the other company and see what he could do for him. With this fair, but somewhat equivocal promise, the plaintiff went away apparently satisfied.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
61 N.Y. St. Rep. 697, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/bussman-v-western-transit-co-nysuperctbuf-1894.