55 So. 894 | Ala. | 1911
The second count of the complaint, to which a demurrer was interposed and overruled, states a good and sufficient cause of action. The wrong complained of in this count and from which the alleged injury resulted consisted in the averred negligent act of the defendant’s servant, the conductor on “said train,” in requiring the plaintiff, an old and infirm woman, to leave “said train” at a place “highly dangerous” for her to do so. There is a general averment of negligence and facts stated as to the dangers of the place for an old and infirm person to disembark. The complaint we think was unobjectionable as to any of the stated grounds of demurrer, and in overruling it the action of the court was free from! error.
The cause was tried on the plea of not guilty, and special pleas of contributory negligence. The plaintiff’s evidence showed that the plaintiff as an intending passenger boarded the defendant’s train at Woodlawn Junction, a suburb of the city of Birmingham, for return passage to her home in Columbus, Ga., on an excursion or round-trip ticket which she had purchased and paid for from the defendant railroad company at said Columbus, Ga., and on which she had been carried from
While the defendant was under no legal duty to carry the plaintiff as a passenger on the return ticket without the same having been “validated” as provided in the contract, and had the right to eject her upon refusal to
So it appears upon reason and authority that the defendant, in the exercise of its right in the expulsion of the plaintiff: from its train, was bound to act with due care for her safety; and, in the■ determination of this question, the elements of timje, place, condition of the weather, the age and sex of the party are to be taken
And whether or not it is a dangerous place becomes a question of fact for the determination of the jury under all the attendant circumstances.
There was no error in overruling defendant’s objections to questions put to the witness Moncrief on cross-examination. It does not appear from the record that the purpose of the questions was to lay any predicate for impeachment of the witness. — Floyd v. State, 82 Ala. 21, 2 South. 683.
The latitude of a cross-examination for the purpose of testing the memory, sincerity, etc., of the Avitness, is largely within the discretion of the trial court, and may and often does relate to immaterial matters without the issues of the case. — Southern Railway Co. v. Brantley, 132 Ala. 657, 32 South. 300; Sloss-Sheffield Steel & Iron Co. v. House, 157 Ala. 663, 47 South. 573; Noblin v. State, 100 Ala. 14, 14 South. 767; Tobias & Co. v. Triest & Co., 103 Ala. 670, 15 South. 914.
There Avas no error in refusing to alloAV the witness Moncrief, on the objection of the plaintiff, to give his opinion as an expert as to whether the place was a reasonably safe place for the plaintiff to leave the train. This Avas no matter for expert testimony, and, as Avell stated by the trial court, it was for the witness to state the facts as to the nature of the place, and for the jury to determine whether it Avas reasonably safe.
The plaintiff in leaving the train at thé place where she was required by the conductor to leave under the circumstances had a right to assumie that it was a safe place for her to get off, and in getting off with her suit case in her hand could not be said, as a matter of law,
Assuming that the plaintiff boarded the train in good faith and honestly believing that she would be carried on her return trip ticket back to Columbus, G-a., to all intents and purposes as to her safety in being put off of the train, there existed the relation of passenger and carrier, and the defendant was under the same duty of rendering needful assistance in discharging the plaintiff from the train as if she had been a passenger. Written charges 20, 21, and 22, requested by the defendant, were therefore properly refused.
Charge 26, if not otherwise faulty, was properly refused as being argumentative.
Charge 27 was invasive of the province of the jury and was properly refused.
Charge 28, refused to the defendant, has been frequently condemned by this court. The court is not required to tell the jury that there is no evidence of a particular fact.
Charge 12 was not only misleading in tendency, but was otherwise inherently bad.
The duty rested on the defendant’s conductor to know of the perils of the place where he required the plaintiff to leave the train.
Charges 14, 16, 17, and 19, refused to the defendant, are each and all of them in their statement of the law opposed to the views we entertain, and as herein above expressed, and no error was committed in their refusal.
Charge 24 assumes that the long step down from the steps of the car to the ground was obvious, while the plaintiff testified that she could not see the ground as
We fail to find any reversible error in the record, and the judgment is affirmed.
Affirmed.