88 Mich. 219 | Mich. | 1891
This is an action for damages for assault and battery, and was commenced in justice's court, where plaintiff had judgment for $6 damages and $3.25 costs of suit. Defendant appealed to the circuit court for the county of Kalamazoo, where the cause was tried before a jury on March 6, 1891, and plaintiff had judgment for $40 damages and costs of suit. Defendant brings the case to this Court by writ of error.
The plaintiff was a hackman, and went to the depot of the Michigan Central Railroad Company in pursuit of his legitimate business of soliciting the carriage of passengers from the incoming trains to the hotels and private residences in the city. He was in the employ of a Mr. Waud, who owned the hack and outfit. Arriving at the depot on the day upon which the assault was committed, he took a place upon the depot grounds of the railroad company with his hack, and,-upon being told by the depot master that that place had been assigned to another hack, he refused to yield the place. The defendant is the depot master at that depot. The depot grounds occupy the space covered by the railroad track of the Michigan Central Railroad Company in what was formerly a street, and which had been vacated for the construction of the railroad. The grounds also include the entire north part of block 15 in the city, bounded north by the vacated street, and south by an alley. The title to this north part of block 15 is in the railroad company, and these are the lands upon which the plaintiff entered and stood with his hack, and from which he refused to remove to another part of said grounds.
It appears that the railroad company on April 25, 1890, made certain rules for the management of its depot grounds, and for the regulation of hack and bus drivers
“ 1. Location for omnibuses and hacks will be assigned to parties, who will occupy them while standing at the depot to get passengers.
“2. Drivers must take the stands which are assigned them, and will not be allowed to. take places assigned to others.
“ 3. The positions assigned must not be occupied more than 20 minutes previous to the arriving time of passenger trains.
“ 4. Each driver must remain by his hack or omnibus when soliciting passengers.
“ 5. No hacks or omnibuses will be allowed to stand in*222 the porch longer than necessary to load or unload passengers.
“6. The drivers of hacks and omnibuses will not be allowed in waiting rooms, except on business.
“7. Profane, obscene, boisterous language, or quarreling, will not be allowed on the depot grounds.
“8. Only one transfer wagon will be allowed to stand at the baggage-room, which will be the baggage-wagon that is hired by the railroad companies to transfer baggage between the different depots.”
The court below charged the jury that—
“It would be competent for the railroad company to make such a rule as is included in these, — that the hack-men should not come to the station for passengers earlier than twenty minutes before train-time. That rule would be good, and could be enforced. The company could also make a rule that the hackmen should not stand within a certain distance of the platform of the station. That rule would be good. But, without enlarging upon these, there is one rule which the court, as a matter of law, following what the court conceives to be the decision of the Supreme Court on the same matter, holds is not good, and that is the rule, that hackmen should be assigned places at the platform for the receipt of passengers, and that these places assigned should be occupied by no others. This the court holds, as matter of law, is not good.”
It appeared upon the trial that the plaintiff at the time of the assault was not engaged in making any disturbance, or using any boisterous, vulgar, or obscene language, and was in no way offending against the rules of good order and decorum. The only question for consideration, therefore, is whether the rule adopted by the company reserving the right upon its own grounds to assign places to the different hackmen, and excluding from those places others not assigned thereto, is a reasonable one, and one which the company had a right to enforce.
The court below was in error in supposing that the rules adopted by the railroad company, and which were
The rules adopted were reasonable rules, and were intended by the railroad company to convenience the traveling public. They in no manner give place to one hackman to the exclusion of another, and they deprive
The judgment of the court below must be reversed, with costs of both courts. No new trial will be ordered.