Tri-State Transit Co. v. Martin

179 So. 349, 181 Miss. 388, 1938 Miss. LEXIS 81
Mississippi Supreme Court·Decided March 7, 1938·No. No. 33054.·Published·Cited by 18 cases

Opinion

Griffith, J.,

delivered the opinion of the court.

Appellee, a negro woman, thirty-seven years of age, had arranged to visit her parents, who resided in Jones county about four miles from Summerland; and as a part of that arrangement a conveyance was to be sent to Summerland to meet her on arrival of appellant’s noonday bus on Thursday, August 13, 1936. On the morning of that day appellee, with three children, took passage on one of appellant’s busses, having procured and presented the necessary tickets to Summerland; and her brother went to Summerland with a conveyance to meet her, as previously arranged.

The bus driver was a new employee on that route and was unacquainted with the route or the stops. At Taylorsville he got on the wrong road, and, after being directed by a passenger to the correct route, appellee took the precaution to advise him that her stop would be next. The driver did not stop at Summerland nor announce his approach to that point, but continued beyond as if there were no such stop. The highway at Summerland had been changed since appellee’s last visit *395 to her parents, and she did not realize that Summerland had been reached or passed until the bus arrived at or near Knight’s filling station and store, nearly three miles beyond. She thereupon at once informed the driver that he had taken her beyond her station and requested that she be returned. It was not allowable for appellant to turn around in response to this request, but no compliance with it in the alternative was offered, and she was put out at Knight’s with her baggage and children.

This was about 12 o’clock on an extremely dry and hot August day. It was about four miles from this point to her parents’ home. She had no money to employ a conveyance. She left part of her baggage with Mrs. Knight, and with the remainder she started afoot to her parents’ home. She was carrying in-her arms a child eighteen months old. There was another child four years old, who soon became exhausted and also had to be carried. The other child eight years old was able to render little assistance. Appellee was three months pregnant, and in this condition with the burdens aforementioned she did not reach her parents’ home until 4 o’clock, and then in a state of exhaustion and prostration, wet with perspiration, nauseated, with pains in her head, stomach, back, and side, and with a fever. She went immediately to bed and there remained until Monday morning when, by conveyance, she was taken to the station, from whence she reached her home in Madison county. She was there taken at once to a competent physician who, upon examination, was apprehensive of a miscarriage. At the direction of the physician she was put to bed and there remained for about three to four weeks, and was in bed for a part of the time for an additional like period, or a little longer. Previously she had always been in good health.

Her physician continued to attend her at frequent intervals until the birth of her child in February, and had her under observation until the trial of this cause *396 in June, 1937. He testified that her health, was permanently impaired, that she would never be able to work in the heat as she had always theretofore been accustomed to do, and said she had suffered from what he termed a heatstroke attributable to her experience above set out. No attempt was made to question or discredit the physician’s testimony in any way; he was not even cross-examined.

The first contention of appellant to be noticed is that appellee should have employed a conveyance at Knight’s and that, had she done so, her personal injury would have been avoided and her damages would have been only the price paid for the conveyance. It has already been mentioned that she had no money to employ a conveyance. The poor are entitled to avail of the facilities of public carriers upon the payment of the public rate and are not required to have an additional sum to provide against the consequences of a breach of the contract of carriage; they are entitled to travel upon the assumption that there will be no failure of duty on the part of the carrier. Moreover, in the recent case, North American Ins. Co. v. Henderson, 177 So. 528, we held that, while generally an injured person has the duty to use reasonable care, and to make reasonable effort to prevent or minimize the consequence of the wrong or injury, the rule is one of reason and that, where funds are necessary to meet the situation and the injured person is without the funds, he is excused1 from the effort.

The next contention is that appellee unnecessarily and unreasonably increased the danger of injury by undertaking the trip from Knight’s to her parents’ home by starting out in the middle or heat of. the day instead of waiting until later in the afternoon. This point as to the reasonableness of her conduct under all the facts and circumstances was submitted to the jury, under a separate instruction, given at the request of appellant and directed specifically to the point, and we are un *397 able to say that the jury was not warranted in reaching the conclusion which they did upon this issue.

Appellant as its third, and perhaps main, contention argues that the court was in error in allowing to go to the jury for their consideration the testimony that appellee suffered a heatstroke, spoken of by appellant as a sunstroke. Appellant says that this was an eventuality which was not reasonably foreseeable by it, and that in law such a happening must be designated as an accident. Appellant cites many cases from other jurisdiction which apparently sustain the contention. The books abound in cases dealing with proximate cause; almost anything may be found on the subject. As said by this court in Yazoo & M. V. Railway Co. v. Smith, 103 Miss. 150, 163, 60 So. 73, 74, ££the subject of proximate cause has been vexatious to the courts.” There is perhaps no other branch of the law wherein it is more essential, in the interpretation of judicial opinions, to have in mind the precise facts of the case to which a particular decision is directed.

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Tri-State Transit Co. v. Martin, 179 So. 349, 181 Miss. 388, 1938 Miss. LEXIS 81 (Mich. 1938).

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