Sira v. Wabash Railroad

21 S.W. 905, 115 Mo. 127, 1893 Mo. LEXIS 41
CourtSupreme Court of Missouri
DecidedMarch 25, 1893
StatusPublished
Cited by18 cases

This text of 21 S.W. 905 (Sira v. Wabash Railroad) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Missouri primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Sira v. Wabash Railroad, 21 S.W. 905, 115 Mo. 127, 1893 Mo. LEXIS 41 (Mo. 1893).

Opinion

Macfarlane, J.

The suit is for damages on account of the alleged wrongful expulsion of plaintiff from one of its trains by the employes of defendant.

The petition charges, in substance, that on the second of November, 1888, defendant sold plaintiff a coupon ticket, which entitled her to transportation from the state of Virginia to St. Louis, Missouri, and from St. Louis to Mexico, Missouri, over the road of defendant, but that her destination was Benton City, and defendant, when it sold her the ticket, agreed to let her off at her destination; that on the fourth of November, 1888, at the city of St. Louis, defendant further agreed, in consideration of the purchase of said ticket, to safely and with dispatch transport plaintiff on that night to said Benton City, and on the journey would protect her from harm; that defóndant, however, did not keep said agreement, but after receiving plaintiff as a passenger, and before she reached her destina[132]*132tion, by its servants and agents in charge of the train,, withdrew all protection from her, and wrongfully,, wantonly, knowingly, recklessly, etc., expelled her,, against her consent, from the train in the cold and- • darkness, about midnight, at the town of Montgomery,, in a frightened condition, in the company of one Dick. Dusenberry, a passenger on the same train, who, with the knowledge and consent of the defendant’s servants,, took her into his custody, decoyed her to a saloon,, where he held her prisoner for five hours, and ravished her, by reason of which she was greatly injured in-body and mind, suffering loss of time and expense, ruined her life and respectability, to her damage in the sum of $50,000. The answer was a general denial.

The evidence showed that plaintiff was between sixteen and seventeen years of age, and on November, 1888, she purchased a ticket in Virginia for Mexico,. Missouri, intending to stop at Benton City; that she arrived in the St. Louis union depot on the evening of November 1th, and after waiting a short time, she-was placed upon a train of defendant company which ran through Benton City and Mexico; that after the train had started the conductor came through the car-collecting tickets, and informed her that the train did not stop at Benton City, and she would have to get off' at Montgomery and wait there for another train. Plaintiff objected, and insisted upon being let off at-Benton City, but the conductor refused. During the journey, a man named Dusenberry took a seat beside-plaintiff and engaged in conversation with her. When the train was about stopping at Montgomery, the conductor told plaintiff that was the place for her to get-off. Dusenberry offered to see her safe to a hotel, to which the conductor assented. Instead of taking her to a hotel, he took her to a saloon where he brutally abused and ravished her. Upon plaintiff’s evidence,. [133]*133the court directed a verdict for defendant, and judgment was entered accordingly, and plaintiff appealed.

In a consideration of the ruling of the court, the evidence will be given, so far as necessary, in detail.

Defendant had the undoubted right in the absence of statutory requirements to determine for itself what trains should stop at particular way stations, and the traveling public was bound to accommodate itself to such regulations as may have been adopted. Trains could not be safely or successfully run under the direction and management of the passengers. If then under the rules of defendant the train in question was not scheduled to stop at Benton City the conductor acted properly and within his duty in refusing to stop there for plaintiff, though she took that train under the direction of another agent of defendant who had authority to direct passengers. In such case, if damage results, it must be attributed to the misdirection. 2 Wood’s Railway Law, sec. 355; Logan v. Railroad, 77 Mo. 664; Marshall v. Railroad, 78 Mo. 616.

Safety and convenience of passengers, as well as the business interests of the carrier require “the adoption and strict enforcement of reasonable regulations for the operation and management of trains. The public has the right to rely upon them,” and, if defendant undertook to carry plaintiff to Benton City, and under the regulations it had adopted for the management of its passenger business, the train upon which she took passage was one which was required to receive and discharge passengers at that station, then under the foregoing authorities defendant.committed an actionable wrong in requiring her to leave the train at Montgomery.

Defendant is charged with wrongfully ejecting plaintiff from its train at a station short of'her destination. The question whether under the rules of defend[134]*134ant this train conld have been stopped at Benton City, therefore, became a vital one on the trial. Proof that the train always stopped at that station or that it habitually stopped there when it was the destination of a passenger on board would be sufficient proof of a rule requiring it to do so. That character of proof would be all to which a passenger could resort without calling upon the agents of defendant to furnish the evidence. The proof therefore made by plaintiff, that the train in question sometimes stopped at that station, was sufficient to make a prima facie case that under the regulations of defendant this train was required to stop there, and to put the burden on defendant to show that such stops were exceptional, and were made under special instructions from the company, if such was the case. It becomes unnecessary, therefore, to inquire whether the burden is not primarily upon the carrier to prove its regulations in regard to running its trains.

Plaintiff testified that the 'conductor soon after taking up her ticket informed her that the train did not stop at Benton City and for that reason she would have to get off at Montgomery. Defendant now insists that the conductor’s statement respecting the schedule and running orders of his train was not drawn in question on the trial and should be accepted here as equivalent to an admission that the statement was correct.

The statement of the conductor was a mere declaration of an agent of defendant in its interest and was not admissible as evidence of the fact stated. While it was drawn out by plaintiff it was only done in giving all the conductor stated in his rufusai to stop the train. The persistency with which counsel for plaintiff insisted on the introduction of the evidence shows clearly that the truth of the declaration was not confessed.

While the evidence made a case of actionable wrong, whether the judgment should be reversed [135]*135depends upon the sufficiency of the proof of damage to justify a judgment therefor. It will be observed in the first place that no damage was alleged in the petition except such as especially resulted from the outrage committed upon plaintiff by Dusenberry; and in the second place no other damage was proved. The court allowed plaintiff the greatest latitude in the introduction of evidence in proof of damages. She was per-, mitted to testify to the minutest details of what she suffered at the hands of Dusenberry, and of all facts which had a tendency to aggravate her damages; yet no word of testimony was given of any damage which she would have sustained had she not met with Dusenberry. The demurrer to the evidence was therefore properly sustained, unless the damage from Dusenberry was properly attributable to the acts of defendant’s conductor in requiring plaintiff to leave the train at Montgomery.

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Bluebook (online)
21 S.W. 905, 115 Mo. 127, 1893 Mo. LEXIS 41, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/sira-v-wabash-railroad-mo-1893.