Houston E. & W. T. Ry. Co. v. Snow

201 S.W. 224, 1918 Tex. App. LEXIS 129
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedFebruary 15, 1918
DocketNo. 306.
StatusPublished

This text of 201 S.W. 224 (Houston E. & W. T. Ry. Co. v. Snow) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Texas primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Houston E. & W. T. Ry. Co. v. Snow, 201 S.W. 224, 1918 Tex. App. LEXIS 129 (Tex. Ct. App. 1918).

Opinion

HIGHTOWER, C. J.

This suit was instituted by the appellee, who was plaintiff below, in the district court of Liberty county, against appellant, Houston East & West Texas Railway Company, to recover damages against said company in the sum of $2,000. Appellee alleged substantially that on the 26th day of March,' 1917, he purchased a ticket over the line of appellant railway company from Houston, Tex., to Cleveland, Tex., for which he paid the sum of $1.30; that said ticket was purchased for the morning train of March 26th, which left Houston at 7:30 o’clock a. m., hut that appellee did not leave Houston on this train, having missed the same, and remained over for the train that left Houston at 9 o’clock p. m. of the same day; that the agent of the defendant company at Houston informed appellee that the ticket was good for the evening train; that it was honored at the gate, and that he boarded the passenger train of appellant which left Houston at 9 o’clock p. m. on March 26, 1917; that about four or five miles from the Central station at Houston axipel-lant’s conductor refused to honor appellee’s ticket, stating to appellee that his' ticket was out of date, and that the ticket showed to have been purchased on March 25th in place of March 26th; that appellee protested, stating that he had purchased the ticket on March 26th, and refused to get off the train; that at some distance from the Central station, between five and six miles, the conductor stopped the train and forced and compelled appellee to get off; that the night was dark, the wind was blowing considerably, and that it was thundering and lightning and raining; that it was about 9 o’clock at night, and at the time appellee was ejected from said train it was dark and stormy, windy, lightning and thundering, the' rain having commenced to fall before appellee was ejected from the train, and that it got worse before he was ejected; that appellee was exposed to the cold wind, threatening weather, and that he was ejected at a place where there were no houses or other means of shelter, and was compelled to walk to his son’s house, a distance of about six miles; that appellee was an old man about 63 years of age, and that by reason of having to walk back from the place where he was ejected he became very much frightened, fearing that he would be run over by a train, or in all probability would be attacked by negroes or Mexicans; that he was a country man, not acquainted with city life, and was very much excited when put off under the circumstances mentioned; that he suffered great inconvenience, worry, fatigue, and mental anguish in consequence of said wrongful ejection.

Appellant answered by general demurrer and general denial. The case was tried with a jury, and on the trial appellant admitted that its conductor wrongfully ejected appellee from its train, and that the only issue to be submitted for the jury’s consideration was the amount of damages to which appellee was entitled and this issue alone was submitted for the jury’s consideration, and the jury returned a verdict in favor of appellee for $2,000, the full amount sued for.

Appellant’s motion for new trial was filed and overruled, and the action of the court in that regard was duly excepted to.

There are two assignments of error found in appellant’s brief. The first is that the verdict in favor of appellee for $2,000 is excessive, and without support in the evidence, and shows that the jury was actuated either by malice against appellant or prejudice in favor of appellee, or that the same was rendered without due consideration, and without regard to the evidence introduced upon the trial, and that the amount so "awarded is so manifestly unjust as to warrant the belief that said jury was actuated either by prejudice in favor of appellee or malice against appellant, or that the same was rendered purely for punishment by reason of the failure of appellant to comply with its contract of carriage, and was not rendered upon the evidence as for injuries that appellee was shown to have sustained.

We have very carefully examined the record before us in connection with this assignment, and have concluded that the verdict of *225 the jury is excessive, and that this assignment should be sustained.

The facts pertinent in this connection may be substantially stated as follows: Appellee was on a visit to his son, who lived in the city of Houston, and on the morning of the 26th of March, 1917, appellee went to appellant’s ticket office in Houston, and purchased a ticket to Cleveland, Tex., paying the proper price therefor, with the intention of boarding appellant’s train due to leave Houston early that morning, but for some reason appellee was left by this train, and therefore remained over until appellant’s evening train was due to leave Houston for Cleveland, about nine o’clock that 'night. Just before appellant’s train was due to leave that night, appellee, accompanied by his son, came to the station of appellant, and presented to the gateman at the station his ticket, which he had purchased in the morning, and asked the gate-man if the ticket was good for the night train, to which the gateman replied, “it is as good as any I can sell you,” and thereupon appellee was passed through the gate and boarded appellant’s train. After the train had proceeded on its journey and had reached a distance of about two miles from the station, appellant’s conductor came in the coach where appellee was sitting, and on approaching appellee for his ticket appellee handed the conductor the ticket which he had purchased in the morning of that day, which ticket the conductor refused to accept, stating to appellee that the ticket was no good, for the reason that the ticket was purchased the day before, on March 25th, and that he, the conductor, could not honor the ticket under the rules of the company, and that appellee would have to pay a cash fare of $1.30 to Cleveland. Appellee thereupon informed the conductor that he had purchased the ticket on that morning, and that he declined to pay the conductor cash fare to Cleveland, and that, in fact, he had no money with which to pay his fare, and thereupon the conductor told appellee that he would have to get off the train, and caused the train to be stopped, and took appellee by the arm and put him off the train. The ticket in question was, in fact, sold to appellee on the morning of March 26th, but the figure “6” on the ticket was dim, and looked very much like the figure “5,” and this misled appellant’s conductor, and was the cause of the ejection of appel-lee. At the time appellee was ejected from the train it was dark, and was raining, and the ground was wet and slippery, and the wind was blowing, according to appellee’s statement, very hard. Appellee was unacquainted in the vicinity where he was ejected from the train, and the only lights that he could see at that time were the lights known as the tower lights, somewhere near the point where appellant’s line is crossed by the line of the International & Great Northern Railway, and he stated that he could not see the electric lights in the city of Houston at all from the point where he was ejected.

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Bluebook (online)
201 S.W. 224, 1918 Tex. App. LEXIS 129, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/houston-e-w-t-ry-co-v-snow-texapp-1918.