Louisville N.R. Co. v. Blair

123 So. 859, 154 Miss. 680, 1929 Miss. LEXIS 182
CourtMississippi Supreme Court
DecidedSeptember 30, 1929
DocketNo. 27989.
StatusPublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 123 So. 859 (Louisville N.R. Co. v. Blair) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Mississippi Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Louisville N.R. Co. v. Blair, 123 So. 859, 154 Miss. 680, 1929 Miss. LEXIS 182 (Mich. 1929).

Opinion

Anderson, J.,

delivered the opinion of the court.

Appellee brought this action in the circuit court of Jackson county to recover of appellant damages, both actual and punitive, for an injury claimed to have been suffered by her through the negligence of appellant in selling her a ticket.for passage over its road from Pas-cagoula, in this state, to Brewton, in the state of Alabama, on appellant’s passenger train No. 134, and requiring: her, because the train on which she was being carried did not stop at her destination, to disembark from *685 said train in the nighttime at Flomaton, Alabama, an intermediate station, and remain there in the appellant’s depot about four hours, awaiting appellant’s next passenger train which stopped at her destination. Appellee recovered a judgment in the sum of one thousand five hundred dollars, from which appellant prosecutes this appeal.

The case made by the evidence on behalf of appellee was substantially as follows:

Appellee’s mother and father lived about ten miles in the country from' Brewton, in Alabama. Appellee received a telegram from her mother, advising her that her father had died, and to come to Brewton. Appellee and her three-year-old child, accompanied by her brother-in-law, went to appellant’s station in Pascagoula, about six o’clock in the afternoon, and purchased from appellant’s agent there a ticket for herself and child from Pascagoula to Brewton on appellant’s train No. 134. Appellant’s agent, selling the ticket, told appellee and her brother-in-law, according to their testimony, that train No. 134 stopped at her destination. The train soon arrived ; she presented her ticket to the conductor in charge, who permitted her, with her child, to enter the train as a passenger. Shortly after the train pulled out from Pascagoula, the conductor took up appellee’s ticket, punched it, and handed it back to her. The conductor said nothing as to whether the train she was on stopped at her destination or not. When the train reached Mobile, Alabama, which is a division point, another conductor took charge of the train. When he took up appellee’s ticket, he stated to her that the train she was on did not stop at Brewton. She replied that the ticket agent at Pascagoula had said that it did stop there. The conductor said, “I am telling you it don’t stop, and you will have to get off at Flomaton.” Appellee testified that the conductor talked “like he was mad;” that it seemed to do the conductor good to put her off the train at *686 Flomaton. She said some passengers near by overheard the conversation between the conductor and' herself. When the train 'reached Flomaton, appellee, without asking assistance of any of the train crew, carried her three-year-old child, who was asleep, and a heavy suitcase, out of the train, and to appellant’s depot, about one hundred fifty feet from where she disembarked.. There she remained for about four hours, until the arrival of appellant’s next passenger train, No. 2, which stopped regularly at Brewton, on which she embarked.

Flomaton is about eighteen miles from Brewton. If appellee had continued on train 134, she would have arrived at Brewton about twelve-thirty at night; instead, she arrived at Brewton about daylight on train No. 2, which is the first train she could have taken from Pascagoula if appellant’s agent at the latter place had not made a mistake in telling her that train one hundred thirty-four stopped at Brewton. Brewton was only about twenty minutes run from Flomaton. Appellant had notified no one to meet her at her destination, and she was met there by no one. Therefore, there was the same necessity (if necessity there was) for her, in disembarking at Brewton, to carry the child in her arms, and her suitcase in her hand, as there was at Flomaton.

Appellee testified that she was embarrassed and humiliated because two men overheard the conductor tell her that train No. 134 did not stop at Brewton, and that she would have to get off at Flomaton; that the- conductor made this statement to her “like he was mad” and it did him good to do so.

Appellee’s three-year-old child weighed forty-two pounds. She testified that she gave birth to a child about a month before, which was stillborn, and that she had entirely recovered from that; but the effort and strain of carrying- her suitcase and her sleeping three-year-old child off of- train 134 at Flomaton to the appellant’s depot about one hundred fifty feet from the train, and *687 the night wait of about four hours at that place for train No. 2, and the worry and inconvenience resulting therefrom, caused her to flood and become sick, and to suffer great pain for several weeks thereafter. She testified that she carried her child at Flomaton, instead of letting it walk, because it was asleep; and testified further: “I didn’t have to carry him anywhere. I carried him to the depot and stayed there.”

Appellee made no claim that she advised the conductor in charge of train 134 of her recent illness and delicate condition. She testifiedi that she suffered great pain in getting on train No. 2 when it arrived, caused by carrying the child.

Appellant offered evidence, which was ruled out by the court over appellee’s objection, to the effect that its agent at' Pascagoula was authorized, under appellant’s rules, to sell tickets from Paseagpula to Brewton, that passengers holding such tickets could ride on that train to any intermediate point at which it stopped, and then on appellant’s train stopping at Brewton.

Appellant’s agent at Pascagoula testified in the case. His evidence and that of appellee and her brother-in-law were squarely in conflict. He testified that he told neither of them that the ticket he was selling appellee for train 134 gave her the right to travel on that train to Brewton.

Appellant assigns and argues as error the action of the court in refusing its request for an instruction to the jury that they could not award appellee punitive damages. Taking every material fact favorable to appellee’s case as established by the evidence, either directly or by reasonable inference, we are unable to see any element of willfulness, wantonness, or gross negligence on the part of appellants in selling appellee a ticket on train 134, instead of on train No. 2, which arrived about four hours later; or in the conduct toward, or treatment of, appellee by the conductor in charge of that train. The *688 wrongs suffered by appellee at the hands of appellant’s employees, at most, were the result of mere oversight— simple negligence o.n the part of such employees. There is no evidence whatever tending to show that either the agent at Pascagoula, or the conductor in charge of train 134, had any intention of doing appellee a wrong.

In the case of Jackson Light & Traction Co. v. Taylor, 112 Miss. 60, 72 So. 856, the motorman in charge of the street car on which plaintiff was traveling said to the plaintiff, “No, you will get off right here.” Plaintiff testified that this language was used in a rough and offensive manner. The court said that: “The language employed by the conductor, taken most favorably for the plaintiff, amounted to nothing more than brusqueness. The language employed could not be characterized as insulting.”

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

Related

Finkelberg v. Luckett
608 So. 2d 1214 (Mississippi Supreme Court, 1992)
Bridges v. Land
252 So. 2d 209 (Mississippi Supreme Court, 1971)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
123 So. 859, 154 Miss. 680, 1929 Miss. LEXIS 182, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/louisville-nr-co-v-blair-miss-1929.