Texas N. O. R. Co. v. Richardson

143 S.W. 722, 1912 Tex. App. LEXIS 36
Court of Appeals of Texas·Decided January 27, 1912·Published·Cited by 3 cases

Opinion

TALBOT, J.

This was a suit by Adelia Richardson, a minor, by J. H. Richardson, her father and next friend, against the Texas & New Orleans Railroad Company; plaintiff alleging that on September 15, 1910, desiring to go from Athens, her home, to Dayton, Tex., via Beaumont, she purchased from said railroad company, at the station first named, a ticket to Dayton, for which she paid a valuable consideration; that she left Athens at about 10:25 o’clock a. m. on said date, but that, notwithstanding the obligation of the defendant company to transport her to Beaumont,'the brakeman, auditor, and other employSs of said company wrongfully and negligently put her and her baggage off its train at Nona, Tex., a small station some 20 miles from Beaumont,’ in the nighttime; that in putting her off the train the defendant’s said servants acted willfully and maliciously; that there were no hotels or boarding houses at Nona, and that she was thrown among a number of sawmill hands and rough people without any attendant; that there was a crowd hanging around the depot, who gazed and peered at her, made various and sundry remarks about her, thereby causing her to suffer great fear and uneasiness during the whole night; that no train passed through Nona for Beaumont for 24 hours after her ejection, and that she went by wagon from Nona to Kountze, there taking a train to Beaumont; that the driver of the wagon was intoxicated, and in her presence used profane language; that in consequence *723 she suffered great anguish, lost considerable time, and was compelled to pay additional railroad fare to reach her destination. Damages were laid at the sum of $2,500. Defendant answered by general denial, and further pleaded that if plaintiff got off the train at Nona, instead of Beaumont, it was because of negligence on her .part in failing to use ordinary care to inform herself as to the proper place and station to leave the train. A trial before the court and a jury resulted in a verdict and judgment for plaintiff for $250, and the defendant appealed.

[1,2] After defining “negligence,” “ordinary care,” “proximate cause,” and “contributory negligence,” the court instructed the jury as follows: “Now, if you find that in the matter of announcing the station as the train was approaching Nona, or in permitting said plaintiff to leave the train at Nona, the defendant company was guilty of negligence, and that said negligence, if any, was the proximate cause of plaintiff getting off and being left at Nona, then you will find for plaintiff, unless you find againét her on the issue of contributory negligence.” It is assigned that the court erred in authorizing the jury, in this charge to return a verdict in favor of the plaintiff, if the defendant was guilty.of negligence, either in the manner of announcing the station as the train approached Nona, or in permitting the plaintiff to leave its train at Nona, because the allegations of the petition did not authorize the submission of either of such issues. This assignment must be sustained. As has been seen, the petition alleged that the defendant’s employés wrongfully and negligently put plaintiff and her baggage off the train, and in so doing acted willfully and maliciously. It is nowhere alleged that the defendant’s agents in charge of the train negligently announced the station at which the plaintiff alighted as Beaumont, or that either of them, knowing that Nona was not her destination, permitted her to alight at that place. Neither is it alleged that the defendant’s servants were guilty of such negligence in the manner in which the station “Nona” was announced as to mislead the plaintiff, and thereby cause her to understand and believe that the station called was Beaumont. These are materially different grounds of negligence from the negligence alleged, namely, that the defendant’s employés “wrongfully and negligently put her [plaintiff] off said ear at Nona, Texas,” and “that in so putting her off said train the defendant’s said servants acted willfully and maliciously.” The language of the petition, that the employés of the railway company wrongfully and negligently put plaintiff and her baggage off the train at Nona, does not necessarily imply that actual force or violence was used in ejecting plaintiff from the train; but it does import that by some overt or affirmative act on the part of the company’s servants in charge of the train the plaintiff was forced to leave the train, or that by some word spoken she was directed or commanded to alight therefrom. It certainly does not, in its ordinary signification or acceptation, convey the idea that the company’s servants, “in the matter of announcing the station as the train approached Nona, or in permitting plaintiff to leave the train at Nona, was guilty of negligence which caused the plaintiff-to get off the train at that station.” The defendant was not, therefore, advised by the plaintiff’s pleadings that a recovery was sought on the ground that its servants were guilty of negligence, either in the manner in which the station was announced as its train approached Nona, or in permitting the plaintiff to leave the train at Nona, and the submission of such issues was error, for which the judgment must be reversed. That such issues may have been raised by the evidence did not alone authorize their submission. It required both pleading and evidence to warrant the court in submitting them. It is elementary that the plaintiff must recover on the cause of action alleged, or not at all.

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Texas N. O. R. Co. v. Richardson, 143 S.W. 722, 1912 Tex. App. LEXIS 36 (Tex. Ct. App. 1912).

143 S.W. 722 (Texas N. O. R. Co. v. Richardson) — published by Counsel Stack Legal Research, free access to 12M+ legal documents.

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