123 Minn. 153 | Minn. | 1913
Plaintiff claims to have suffered injury from being obliged to sit in a cold station at Mason City, Iowa, for many hours during a night in February while waiting for a train.
Plaintiff was not a through passenger from Union to Kilkenny. 'The agent at Union did not sell him a through ticket, and for a justifiable reason. Plaintiff’s intention to take another train from Mason City to Kilkenny did not, under the circumstances, make him a
No reasonable occasion or demand of travel could require or justify plaintiff’s coming to this station at the time he did. Brown v. Georgia C. & N. Ry. Co. 119 Ga. 88, 46 S. E. 71; Illinois C. R. Co. v. Laloge, 113 Ky. 896, 24 Ky. Law Rep. 693, 69 S. W. 795; Phillips v. Southern Ry. Co. 124 N. C. 123, 32 S. E. 388, 45 L.R.A. 163; Archer v. Union Pac. R. Co. 110 Mo. App. 349, 85 S. W. 934; see also Heinlein v. Boston & P. R. Co. 147 Mass. 136, 16 N. E. 698, 9 Am. St. 676. Or in fact at any time earlier than the time he purchased the ticket, which was about an hour before train time. A person is not a passenger all night because he intends to take a train the next morning, even though he asks to buy a ticket the night before, and even though he came the evening before from another station on the same road for the purpose of taking passage on that train.
If entitled to damages at all, he would be entitled to recover at least for the discomfort of being obliged to remain in a cold station for the period mentioned. We cannot say that this damage, would be merely nominal.
A more important question, however, is the question whether plaintiff can in any event recover for the alleged illness that followed. In view of the fact that a new trial must be had, we deem it proper to make some reference to this question.
If plaintiff had come to the station at the time he bought his ticket, this question would give us no trouble. It would then be a question for the jury whether the subsequent exposure caused the illness that followed. The difficulty arises from the fact that the illness followed a period of exposure for the first part of which defendant was not responsible, and for the latter part of which a jury might find that defendant was responsible. We are of the opinion that the testimony in the record before us is insufficient to sustain a finding that the subsequent illness of plaintiff, or any part of it, was due to the exposure plaintiff suffered after the purchase of his ticket. But the case was not tried in the trial court, nor argued in this court, on the theory that any such showing was necessary, and we are unable to say that such a result is incapable of proof on another trial of the case.
Order reversed and new trial granted.