Zachery v. Mobile & Ohio Railroad

75 Miss. 746

• Court: Mississippi Supreme Court
• Decided: March 15, 1898
• Status: Published

Opinion

Whitfield, J.,

delivered the opinion of the court.

The demurrer to the special plea should have been sustained. The former opinion of this court stated this. The blind man in this case ' ‘ had, at the times referred to in the declaration, when he applied for tickets and permission to travel on defendant’s cars, as much skill and ability to travel without help or attendants as any blind man could have.” The declaration avers that though blind, he was otherwise qualified to travel on the railroad cars, and, in fact, had traveled for several years constantly on appellee’s railroad without objection. The demurrer to this declaration was overruled, and the present demurrer to the special plea presents the same objections, and, of course, should have been sustained. It is not every sick or crippled or infirm person whom a railroad regulation can exclude, but one so sick or so crippled or so infirm as not to be able to travel without aid. And so it is not every blind person, but one who, though blind, is otherwise incompetent to travel alone on the cars. Otherwise, we would be compelled to hold that one suffering from sickness, no matter how slight, or one who had lost an arm or leg, or one, no matter how active physically, and no matter how expert a traveler, though being blind, could be shut out by such a rule. And this ought not to be, and cannot be, sound law. We are asked to hold that a regulation that no blind person whatever shall travel unaccompanied by an assistant, no matter how skillful or expert a traveler he may have been, or may be, and no matter how perfectly qualified in every other respect to travel on cars unaccompanied, is a reasonable rule. This cannot be sound. Each case must depend on its own facts, and the reasonableness of the refusal to sell the blind person a ticket must, on principle, depend not on a universal, arbitrary and undiscriminating rule like this one, but on the capacity to travel unaccompanied, of the particular blind person, as shown by the proof on that point in his case.

Judgment reversed, demurrer to special plea sustained and remanded.