69 Md. 257 | Md. | 1888
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This is a suit for personal injuries received by the appellee at the hands of the conductor and driver of the appellant’s street car, at a time when, the appellee contends, he was a passenger and as such entitled to the protection of the appellant from the violence of itemploye.
The questions in the case are, was there such evidence in the case of the appellee being a passenger of appellant when the assault was committed ; and of the conductor acting in the line of his duty and scope of his employment, as justified the Court in refusing the prayer of the appellant that there was no legally sufficient evidence in the cause to enable the jury to find for the plaintiff. >
The evidence shows that the appellee entered the appellant’s car at the corner of Broadway and Lancaster street, intending to ride to the corner of Preston and North street, near which the appellee lived; and to which point he was accustomed to ride on the defendant’s cars, and had been, almost daily in the habit of riding for several years in returning from his work. ' On this occasion as the car turned into Preston street, several ladies go,t into the car, and as it was full the appellee arose and gave his seat to a lady and stood in front of the seat which he had occupied. Whilst he was so standing the driver, who was also conductor, and the only officer of the car, opened the door and said to appellee, “Captain, I want you to sit down.” The appellee replied I have given my seat to this lady, and there is no other, when I can get a
Judge Cooley, in his work on Torts, page 535, says : the liability of the master .for intentional acts which constitute legal wrongs can only arise when that which is done is within the real or ajoparent scope of the master’s business. It does not arise when the servant has stepped aside from his employment to commit a tort which the master neither directed in fact, nor could be supposed, from the nature of his employment, to. have authorized or expected the servant to do.” He illustrates his meaning by this statement: So if the conductor of a train of cars leaves his train to beat a personal enemy, or from mere wantonness to inflict any injury, the difference between his case and that in which the passenger is ejected from the cars is obvious. The one is a trespass he has stepped aside to commit; the other is committed in the course of his employment.” The statement of the law by this eminent jurist seems to be supported by direct decision. Crocker vs. New London, &c., R. R. Co., 24 Conn., 249; Pittsburg, &c., Pass. R. R. Co. vs. Donohue, 70 Pa. St., 119 ; Evansville R. R. Co. vs. Baum, 26 Ind., 70; Wright vs. Wilcox, 19 Wend., 343.
The Supreme Court of the United States, in New Jersey Steamboat Co. vs. Brockett, 121 U. S., 645, decide unequivocally that the carrier of passengers must protect his passengers from the violence of the carrier’s employes, as also from that of other passengers; but there is nothing in the decision in conflict
When the appellee entered this street car it does not appear he had a ticket to any particular point. Upon entering the car according to the well understood arrangement, the carrier was bound to take the passenger for the stipulated fare to any point within the terminii of the road where he might desire to alight. Whenever the passenger did alight that con. tract was at an end, unless his alighting was well understood by the carrier’s agent to be rightful and temporary, and that he was to resume his seat. He says he alighted for a purpose, and intended to resume his place in the car and continue his journey; but this purpose was not communicated to or assented to by the driver and conductor. After he had alighted and walked a square, could he resume his place in the car without paying another fare, without the assent of the conductor? Would the conductor be justified in omitting to demand another fare? We think not. Had he remained in the car until the stables were reached and the horses were being changed, the carrier would have understood his journey was not completed, and whilst the horses were being changed he would still have been regarded as a passenger, and would have been entitled to protection as against the cm
The first prayer of the appellant ought to have been granted, and the case taken from the jury. It follows, of course, that the plaintiff’s prayers were erroneously granted.
Judgment reversed.