Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad v. Spirk

70 N.W. 926, 51 Neb. 167, 1897 Neb. LEXIS 272
CourtNebraska Supreme Court
DecidedApril 21, 1897
DocketNo. 7069
StatusPublished
Cited by8 cases

This text of 70 N.W. 926 (Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad v. Spirk) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Nebraska Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad v. Spirk, 70 N.W. 926, 51 Neb. 167, 1897 Neb. LEXIS 272 (Neb. 1897).

Opinion

Harrison, J.

. John and Eman Spirt commenced separate actions against the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad Company to recover damages alleged to have accrued in their favor on account of their unlawful and wrongful expulsion, prior to arrival at their destination, from one of the trains of the company, upon which they were passengers. The alleged causes of action had their origin in the same state of facts; hence after issues joined the causes were, on motion presented therefor, consolidated, the evidence introduced but once and the one jury returned a verdict thereon in each case favorable to plaintiffs. The company has prosecuted error proceedings to this court.

Before answer there was a motion interposed in behalf of the company, in each case, to strike out of the petitions certain portions thereof quoted in the motion. The refusal of the trial court to act in accordance with these [172]*172motions is the subject of one assignment of error. If the matter sought to be stricken out of the pleadings contained anything immaterial, which we need not now decide, if it also contained any material averment or averments, which it clearly did, it was proper to overrule the motions, and there was no error in so doing. There was no prejudicial or available error in the overruling of the motions to strike out disclosed by the record presented to this court.

After the issues had been joined and the cases called for trial, at the inception of the introduction of evidence on behalf of defendants in error, counsel for the plaintiff in error objected to the reception of any evidence, on the* ground that the facts stated in the. petitions were insufficient to constitute a cause of action. This was overruled; and the action of the court in this regard is assigned and urged as error. Where, as in this case, the objection to the sufficiency of a petition, that it does not state a cause of action, is not interposed until on the trial, the pleading will be liberally construed, and if possible sustained. (Roberts v. Taylor, 19 Neb., 184.) Read and interpreted in accordance with the foregoing rule, the petitions herein were sufficient and not open to the criticism urged against them, viz., that it did not appear that defendants in error were at the time rightfully on the train from which they alleged they were ejected. The petitions disclosed that the defendants in error purchased tickets, which entitled them to a safe passage on or over plaintiff in error’s road from a named starting point to a designated destination, and that they became passengers on said railroad accordingly, and took seats in the cars of plaintiff in error, to be carried to their journey’s end, and were carried directly toward their destination until a station called Benkleman, on the line of road, was reached, where they were unlawfully and forcibly ejected from the train or car in which they were riding. The foregoing is, in substance and in short, a statement of the portions of the pleadings attacked, and the averments were, we think, [173]*173sufficient to show a cause of action in favor of the parties seeking redress for alleged wrongs.

The evidence discloses that the defendants in error were citizens and residents of Wilber, in Saline county, this state, that at the time of the trip, of which some of the incidents and circumstances form the basis of these suits, certain matters of business rendered it necessary that they go to Haigler, a station on the line of road of the company, plaintiff in error, to be there met by someone, and be taken from there twenty-five or thirty miles across the prairie to meet a party or parties, with whom defendants in error had certain affairs to transact, or with whom they were to consult. The brothers called, according to the evidence of the company’s agent at Wilber, on him, separately, a short time prior to the projected travel, and made certain inquiries in regard to the arrangement of the running of the trains by which they could reach their desired destination, and were furnished with the information. On Saturday, June 10, 1893, they boarded a train of plaintiff in error at Wilber, paying their fare to Wymore to the conductor on the train; at the last mentioned station they purchased tickets which entitled them respectively to a continuous passage to Haigler, and entered the train which was then standing at Wymore, and which was the proper one for the portion of their journey between Wymore and Oxford Junction, and it contained a chair car and a “Pullman,” which were destined to run through to Denver, Colorado, the other cars of this train going no farther than the junction at Oxford. The Pullman and chair car, to which we have just referred, were to be and were attached to a “local” train which passed through Oxford Junction on its run from Chicago to Denver, and hauled by the local westward, as far as McCook, where they were to be and were detached from the local and attached to another train, a through passenger train running between Chicago and Denver, to be taken to the latter place. This was known as the fast train, or flyer, and made but a few stops at any of the stations along the [174]*174route. The defendants in error were, at or prior to the arrival of the train on which they were passengers, at Oxford Junction, notified to change from the coach in which they were seated to the one in its rear, relatively to the position of the cars considered from the engine or forward end of the train, and they did so. Though there is some conflict as to this particular fact, we must conclude that the parties were so notified,- and made the requested change, as this must have been of the findings of the jury and had ample support in the evidence; and further, it is borne out by the conditions then existing in regard to the cars in the train, and the proper one for them to be in, if they expected to go farther west from Oxford Junction, as this rear chair car which they were told to, and did go into and take seats, was the only one of that train, other than the Pullman, for passengers, which was to proceed farther west toward Denver from Oxford Junction. The chair car and Pullman were attached to the local train for Denver, and hauled by it to McCook, where they were detached, and taken up by the through or fast train, and became a part of it during the balance of the run to Denver. A porter who was on duty on the local train on this day, and in the chair car which had been taken into the train at Oxford Junction, while it was part of such train, to-wit, between Oxford Junction and McCook, 'was examined as a witness, and stated that it was of his duties to notify all passengers who were in the chair car, which had been attached at Oxford Junction, and who were going to stations beyond McCook and intermediate points between there and Denver, to change from that coach to the one in front of it, which would continue to be part of the local train after it should have passed McCook; that he saw the defendants in error in the through chair car, and after ascertaining their destination to be I-Iaigler, told them two or three times to go forward into the local coach, in order that they might be served as their tickets required. That they were thus notified, or in any other manner, or that .they had or gained in any. manner, any information of the [175]*175fact that it was necessary they should leave for another car than that into which they had gone as ordered at or prior to arrival at Oxford the defendants in error strenuously denied.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
70 N.W. 926, 51 Neb. 167, 1897 Neb. LEXIS 272, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/chicago-burlington-quincy-railroad-v-spirk-neb-1897.