Gates v. Quincy, Omaha & Kansas City Railroad

102 S.W. 50, 125 Mo. App. 334, 1907 Mo. App. LEXIS 107
CourtMissouri Court of Appeals
DecidedMay 6, 1907
StatusPublished
Cited by7 cases

This text of 102 S.W. 50 (Gates v. Quincy, Omaha & Kansas City Railroad) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Missouri Court of Appeals primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Gates v. Quincy, Omaha & Kansas City Railroad, 102 S.W. 50, 125 Mo. App. 334, 1907 Mo. App. LEXIS 107 (Mo. Ct. App. 1907).

Opinion

ELLISON, J.

The plaintiff was pnt off of one of defendant’s trains by the conductor and brakeman and claim's to have been injured. The verdict was for five-hundred dollars compensatory damages. Punitive damages were not allowed.

The evidence in plaintiff’s behalf showed that while under the influence of iiquor he boarded defendant’s passenger train at Greencastle intending to go to a station called Stahl, the distance being only a few miles. That the conductor called upon him for his fare and that he had neither money nor ticket. That he made a show of trying to find money or ticket in his pockets and not producing either, the conductor telling him he must pay or get off and on his continued failure to respond the conductor signaled the engineer to stop the train. That when the train was stopping the conductor and brakeman were forcing him to the platform and on getting onto the car steps as the train had about come to a stand on an embankment of about fifty feet in height, they violently pushed him from the step. That he struck the upper portion of the embankment and rolled to the bottom, whereby he received painful injuries. There was also evidence which, if believed, tended to prove that he thought he had a return portion of round-trip- ticket from Stahl to Greencastle, but, in fact, did not have it.

The evidence in his behalf further tended to show a tender of his fare by an acquaintance, which the conductor refused with the words, “To hell with your money. You are too late.” But it conclusively appears that no tender was made until after the failure to pay and after the conductor had given the signal to stop the-train. The money for the tender was obtained from his acquaintance who was seated at the opposite end of the car and upon his attention being called to the scene [337]*337by the words between plaintiff and the conductor, he looked and saw the latter was then signalling for the train to stop by pulling the bell cord. He then gave money to be offered to the conductor which the latter refused.

. There was evidence in defendant’s behalf that plaintiff customarily tried to “beat” his way and had on several occasions severely taxed the patience of conductors by refusing to pay, by pretending to have no money, or to have lost a ticket, by making pretense to search his pockets for money or ticket, etc., and on the trip to Creeneastle that day he had refused to pay until threatened. Several of plaintiff’s important witnesses were asked by defendant on cross-examination, if they too were not in the habit of trying to “beat” the defendant out of the fare between the points named. The trial court sustained plaintiff’s objection to questions of that character.

By instruction number 4, given for the plaintiff, and by instruction number 1, amending that asked by defendant, the trial court denied the defendant’s right to put plaintiff off of the train if “before the conductor put him off” a passenger tendered the fare to the conductor. The law was thus stated to the jury without qualification, and we are of the opinion that it calls for a reversal of the judgment, since it amounts to a direction (the defendant’s evidence considered) that a tender after the beginning of an effort at removal should be accepted, regardless of his intention and conduct in boarding the train. A wise, reasonable and just rule has been laid down in this State by Judge Bond of the St. Louis Court of Appeals and approved by the Supreme Court, that if a person boards a train with the proper evidence of a right to he carriedor with the intention of paying his fare, he becomes a passenger and that if there be, on his part, an honest misunderstanding as to his rights in the payment of his fare, or under his [338]*338ticket, or other evidence of right to carriage, he has a right to a reasonable parley with the conductor on that head. [Holt v. Railroad, 174 Mo. 524.] In that case, there was no doubt of the honest intention of the plaintiff and that he was wdiolly without fault and that he had become a passenger. Notwithstanding he Avas thus Avithout blame, the conductor put him off. After steps had been begun looking to stopping the train for his removal, he tendered his fare Avhich the conductor refused. The court said (italics ours) : “Under these special circumstances, the subsequent actual tender of the money for his fare, if made before or during the process of expulsion by the conductor should have been accepted, and he should have been allowed to remain on the train.” The Supreme Court remarked that the opinion of the St. Louis Court of Appeals correctly declared the lawq “as applicable to the facts” of that case. In the case of Railroad v. Garrett, 8 Lea 438, the same good faith and honesty of intention existed in the passenger, there being no design to impose upon the carrier. A dispute arose between him and the conductor as to his right to be transported by reason of a certain certificate which he had. The conductor, as in the case to wdrich we have just referred, was in the act of removing him, when a fellow passenger offered the fare which the conductor refused. It Avas held that he should have accepted it and the expulsion wras therefore wrongful. But the court remarked that it wms not deciding how it wmuld be where the refusal to pay was captious or vexatious. So, in Clark v. Railway, 91 N. C. 506, it is stated that if a passenger, in good faith, has mislaid his ticket, or lost his pocketbook, or from other good cause is prevented from responding to the conductor’s demand for fare, he should be alloived some opportunity to search for what is lost, or to seek other means of payment, such as, for instance, to borrow of a fellow passenger, unless these [339]*339acts involve an undue interference with other duties of the conductor.

But, the case last cited (and others to which we shall refer) declares the law to he, that when one wrongfully, without reasonable cause or just excuse, refuses to produce his ticket, or pay his fare, he then forfeits his rights as a passenger and may be expelled from the train; and that after the conductor has made a beginning in the acts of expulsion, a tender is too late to revive, or to establish the right to be considered a passenger. The same rule is stated in Garrison v. Railroad, 97 Md. 347, 353. And in Moore v. Railroad, 38 South C. 1, it is said that one who enters a coach without a ticket, on refusing to pay his fare becomes a trespasser ah initio. In Railroad v. Asmore, 88 Georgia 529, in speaking of the case of Railroad v. Nix, 68 Georgia 572, which it overrules, the court said: “Our conclusion is, that it is not sustainable either on principle or by sound authority, and we feel constrained to overrule it in so far as it lays down in universal and unqualified terms the proposition, or its equivalent, that a passenger by making a tender at any time before his ejection may acquire the right to remain on board and be carried. Whenever a passenger refuses to accede to a just and lawful demand made upon him by the conductor for the payment of his fare, after being allowed reasonable time and opportunity to comply, he renounces his right to the position and the privileges of a passenger, and subjects himself to expulsion from the train. If he changes his mind and tenders the fare before anything is done towards bringing the train to a stop in order to eject, him, his-refusal will be retracted in time and his right to remain and be carried will stand unaffected. If he higgles and hesitates until he becomes a proper subject for ejection, and until steps have been taken to that end, he is too late.

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Related

Fleming v. City of Seattle
275 P.2d 904 (Washington Supreme Court, 1954)
Fornoff v. Columbia Taxicab Co.
162 S.W. 699 (Missouri Court of Appeals, 1913)
Harkless v. Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific Railroad
132 S.W. 29 (Missouri Court of Appeals, 1910)
Penas v. Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railway Co.
127 N.W. 926 (Supreme Court of Minnesota, 1910)
Short v. St. Louis & San Francisco Railroad
130 S.W. 488 (Missouri Court of Appeals, 1910)
Kirk v. Seattle Electric Co.
108 P. 604 (Washington Supreme Court, 1910)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
102 S.W. 50, 125 Mo. App. 334, 1907 Mo. App. LEXIS 107, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/gates-v-quincy-omaha-kansas-city-railroad-moctapp-1907.