66 F. 709 | 8th Cir. | 1895
Nannie Cameron, the defendant in error, brought an action against the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad Company, the plaintiff in error, in l.he United States court In the Indian Territory, to recover damages for its failure to stop one of its trains, on which she was a passenger, at Moore, a small station on its road in the territory of Oklahoma. She recovered a verdict, and the case comes to this court on a writ of error sued out by the defendant railroad company. In her complaint the plaintiff below averred that on June 4, 1891, she purchased from the agent of the Gulf, Colorado & Santa Fe Railway Company at Gaines-ville, Tex., a ticket entitling her to transportation from that point, on the line of the Gulf, Colorado & Santa Fe Railway Company to Moore, a station on the line of the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad Company in Oklahoma territory; “that before purchasing said ticket * * * plaintiff caused inquiry to be made of defendant’s agent at said Gainesville concerning the said train, and was assured and informed by said ticket agent that said train was a through train from Gainesville to Moore, and that the same would stop at Moore, and that she would have a continuous passage thereon from G-ainesville to Moore without change of cars, and plaintiff, not knowing of any rule or regulation of the defendant to the contrary, believed said statements, and look passage on said train;” that she was subsequently compelled to leave said train at Norman, a point nine miles south of Moore, because the train did not stop at Moore, and that her health was impaired by leaving the train in a rain storm, and that she was also subjected to considerable expense, inconvenience, and delay. The facts disclosed by
“Q. Who did you see when you got to Gainesville? A. I seen a good many people. I seen the ticket agent at the depot. Q. What agent? A. The ticket agent of the Gulf, Colorado and Sante Fe Railway Company. Q. What did you say to him with reference to your sister wanting! to go to Moore? Did you state whether, or not you asked that question in contemplation of buying a ticket for your sister? A. I did. Q. State the conversation between you and the agent? A. Well, I told him my reasons for coming to see him. X asked what train would be best for my sister to go on, as she was an invalid, and told him that if she could get a through train she could go to Moore without any of us going with her, and if she could not some of us would have to go with her. This was about three weeks before sbe Avent. He told me she could if she went on the ten o’clock train at night. That was why I sent her on that train. Q. Did you say to him that your sister was an invalid? A. Yes, sir; I told him that she Avas an invalid. Q. What did he say with reference to that train stopping at Moore? A. He said that if she took the day train she would have to lay over at Purcell. That was Avhy we put her ou the-night train, — to save going with her. Q. When the ticket agent told you-that the 10:30 train Avas a through train to Moore, and stopped at Moore, AVhat did you then say to him with reference to your sister going to Moore? A. I don’t remember AA’hat I really did say to him. I inquired about that train, and he told me that she could go through on that train. Q. Well, AAdaen you came back to Belcherville, did you report to your sister what the agent had said to you with reference to the train? A. Yes, sir.”
Three weeks after the alleged interview, which is given above in the language of the witness, a brother-in-latv of the plaintiff brought her to Gainesville, and purchased for her, from the station agent of the Gulf, Colorado & Santa Fe Railway Company at that place, a ticket from Gainesville to Moore. At that time there Avere only two trains per day by means of which persons could make the journey by rail from Gainesville to Moore over the lines of the Gulf, Colorado & Santa Fe Railway Company and the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad Company. One of these trains left Gainesville at 2:25 p. m., and arrived at Purcell, in the Indian Territory, the same evening at 6:40 p. m., where passengers were compelled to lay over until the folloAving day before proceeding north. Another train, known as the fast through express from Galveston to Kansas City, passed through Gainesville at 10:30 p. m. daily, and arrived at Purcell, the terminus of the Gulf, Colorado & Santa Fe Railway, at about 3:15 a. m. thte next morning. At that point the passenger and express cars of the train were taken up by a train of the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad Company, which left
We have been favored by counsel for the plaintiff in error with an elaborate argument, which is intended to establish the proposition that the evidence as to what occurred between the station agent at Gainesville, Tex., and the plaintiff’s brother, was inadmissible. It is contended, in substance, that the two corporations above mentioned were distinct legal entities, each under a different management, which bore to each other, at the date of the transaction in question, the same relations that are ordinarily borne by connecting railroads; also that a ticket agent who is merely authorized to sell coupon tickets over the line of a connecting road has no implied authority to make representations for the connecting carrier as to the movement of trains on its road. The view that we have felt ourselves compelled to take of the present case does not require us to determine what were the actual relations that existed on June 4, 1891, between the two carriers; and with reference to the powers of a ticket agent to hind his own company or a connecting carrier we are willing to accept the doctrine announced in New York, L. E. & W. R. Co. v. Winter’s Adm’r, 143 U. S. 60, 12 Sup. Ct. 356, that what is said between a passenger on a railroad and the ticket seller of the company, at the lime of the purchase by the passenger of Ids ticket, is admissible as going to make up the contract of carriage and forming a part of it. The case at bar proceeded upon the evident assumption that the agreement implied by law from the mere purchase of the ticket from Gainesville to Moore was qualified and enlarged by a special assurance given to the purchaser, by the station agent at Gainesville, that the train on which the plaintiff took passage on the evening of June 4, 1891, would stop at Moore. We think that the evidence was insufficient to show a modification of the implied obligation such as is above indicated. The conversation between the plaintiff’s brother- and the station agent, which is relied upon for that purpose, occurred, as before stated, three weeks before the ticket was purchased. It