129 Mo. App. 563 | Mo. Ct. App. | 1908
Plaintiff sued to recover both compensatory and punitive damages on account of the alleged wrongful act of defendant in ejecting him from one of its passenger trains. The jury returned a verdict in his favor for five hundred dollars actual and
On the 4th day of April, 1905, plaintiff purchased of the agent of the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific Railway Company a “Homeseekers’ Excursion” ticket which entitled him to transportation as a passenger from Trenton, Missouri, to Paul’s Yalley, Indian Territory, and return. The route stated in the ticket was over the line of the initial carrier to Kansas City and thence to Paul’s Valley over defendant’s railroad. Plaintiff began his journey on the day he bought the ticket. En route, he was told by the conductor of one of defendant’s trains on which he was a passenger that to avoid going over a branch road, it would be necessary for him to get his ticket exchanged at Arkansas City, Kansas. When the train stopped at that place, he presented the ticket to defendant’s agent who said it was “all right,” issued him another ticket and returned to him the original. The new ticket was made out on a form which entitled the purchaser to a round trip from Arkansas City to Paul’s Yalley, but the agent, by use of a rubber stamp, changed the return trip coupon to read to Kansas City instead of Arkansas City and further stamp.ed on the back of the ticket the words “Good to Kansas City account exchanged.” Plaintiff completed his outward journey and just before starting to return complied with one of the stipulations printed on the ticket which required him to present it to defendant’s agent at Paul’s Yalley for identification as the original purchaser. As one of the means of identification, he wrote his name on the back of the ticket in the presence of the agent who wrote his name as a witness to the signature and affixed the stamp of his office thereunder. The ticket thus validated was honored by defendant as far as Newton, Kansas, where there was a change of conductors. Shortly after the train left that
“He came back after awhile and says ‘if you Avill pay your fare to Kansas City, I Avill let you ride.’ I says ‘most anybody would do that.’- He says ‘you will have to pay your fare or get off, one or the other.’ I showed him the other ticket . . . the one the Rock Island men gave me — they were both in one package. He says: ‘I don’t care anything about that at all. This is the ticket I am looking after. You Avill have to pay your fare or else get off.’ . . . He never told me anything was the matter. He says, ‘I won’t take it,’ and threAv it on the seat and went on. . . . He says, ‘well, if you will pay your fare maybe I can give it back to you at Kansas City.’ I says, ‘they told me that once before, but I never got anything back. I wrote to the general passenger agent and he never ansAvered my letter for quite a while and finally he wrote that he would look into the matter and I never have heard from him since.’ He says, ‘Avell, if you don’t pay it, I Avill put you off.’” Plaintiff then asked the conductor to carry him to Topeka Avhere he had friends but the request was refused and Avhen the train stopped at Peabody, the conductor said, “ ‘you get off here,’ and he hit me on the shoulder and says, ‘if I ain’t man enough to put you off, I will get help and put you off.’ That is what he said.” Plaintiff further said the conductor acted in an angry and threatening manner, that he Avas a much larger man than plaintiff and appeared to be in earnest in the threat to use physical force to eject him. Under fear of violence plaintiff obeyed the order to leave the train and Avas preceded in his departure by the conductor and brakeman Avho carried out his hand baggage and deposited it on the station platform. Counsel for de
Other. passengers, introduced as witnesses by defendant, testified that the manner of the conductor was not threatening or overbearing but that he was firm in his insistence that plaintiff was not entitled to ride on the ticket and must pay his fare or leave the train. One of these witnesses said: “He (the conductor) told plaintiff that the ticket had the appearance of having
The conductor, on the witness stand, denied that he used any harsh or abusive language in his controversy with plaintiff and, on direct examination, said: “I asked him if he would not put up the-four dollars and three cents (the fare to Topeka), that 1 wouldn’t give him no receipt for it, or wouldn’t cut a receipt for it, but I Avould hold the money until we got to Topeka. He declined that. I asked him to put up- the collateral and explained to him that the company held me responsible and if I didn’t get his fare or its equivalent it Avould be taken out of my salary. He stated that he had purchased the ticket in good faith and didn’t care to pay the fare again, and I told him the company wouldn’t want fare off of him twice. I asked him if he was stranded and he said no, but that he had had a similar transaction Avith the Santa Fe once before and' they were so long reimbursing him that he didn’t feel like doing it. ... I told him if-he wouldn’t do anything tOAvards securing me I would have to invite him off, and I think he told me I would have to throw him off. I told him it. was useless to talk that way because if I couldn’t put him off alone all I had to do vvas to call on bystanders and get help enough to put him off. Just about the time the train vvas stopping for- Peabody I said: ‘This is Peabody, you will have to get off here.’ . . . My recollection is that I went out ahead of him. I think he had a grip of some kind and one of these picture frames, that is the structure of it, and I think
After being put off the train, plaintiff remained at Peabody for about three hours and then hoarded another passenger train for Kansas City. He offered the
It is plain that the trouble resulted over the alteration stamped on the ticket by defendant’s agent at Arkansas City and that the conductor acted in good faith but under the false belief that the ticket had been stolen and altered by forgery. It is conceded by defendant that the ticket was valid, that plaintiff to whom it was issued should have been permitted to ride on it to Kansas City, and that he is entitled to recover the actual damage he sustained in consequence of his wrongful ejection. But it is argued that he should not be allowed compensation for his “wounded feelings, mental suffering, humiliation, shame and disgrace” nor punitive damages, and that the learned trial judge erred in including such damages in the instructions since the evidence most favorable to plaintiff fails to show either that the conductor used unnecessary force or violence in ejecting plaintiff from the train, or was guilty of insulting or abusive language or conduct.
In the solution of the questions thus presented, the principles of law by which we are to be guided are well settled in this State. Where a passenger who is wrongfully ejected from a train by the conductor sustains no physical injury in consequence thereof and the ejection is unaccompanied by unnecessary force or violence, wilfulness or malice, but is made in good faith under the mistaken belief of the conductor that the passenger is not entitled to ride on the train, the passenger may recover compensation for all the inconvenience, loss of
We think the evidence adduced by plaintiff was of sufficient' substance to take to the jury the issues of whether the conductor resorted to unnecessary physical force, and, further, was guilty of insulting language and conduct. Defendant insists that in laying his hand on the shoulder of plaintiff, the conductor did nothing more than to commit a mere technical assault which, of itself, could not support a reasonable inference of malice, but this view is opposed to the testimony of plaintiff and, for present purposes, must be rejected. Plaintiff says the conductor hit him in anger with enough force to cause him to feel some pain and from all of the testimony on the subject it reasonably appears that the conductor laid his hand somewhat heavily on plaintiff as a means of enforcing instant obedience to his command. The act introduced physical force into the discussion and by it a determination to employ greater force should plaintiff show any sign of resistance was manifested. It may be likened to the act of a policeman who seizes a culprit by the arm in making an arrest. Accompanied, as plaintiff says it was, by the appearance of official domination and truculence, it cannot be regarded in any other light than as an aggressive demonstration of physical force. Its object of putting plaintiff in fear of personal violence is enough to
Further, Ave are of opinion that the charges made by the conductor in the hearing of the nearby passengers which assailed the honesty of plaintiff, Avere AVholly unnecessary and were insulting and humiliating. We are aware that the St. Louis Court of Appeals in Breen v. Transit Co., 102 Mo. App. 479, held that insult could not be inferred from the belief expressed by a conductor in the hearing of passengers that money offered by a passenger in payment of his fare Avas counterfeit, since a person innocently might have counterfeit money in his possession, but the facts of that case differ in essential particulars from those under consideration. Here the ticket shoAved on its face, it had been issued to Charles Glover who alone was entitled to use it. It further shoAved that the original holder had presented himself for identification at Paul’s Valley; therefore, when the conductor charged plaintiff with presenting a ticket which had been stolen and then raised by for
These considerations lead to the conclusion that the learned trial judge was right in the view that on the hypothesis that plaintiff had been ejected with unnecessary violence or had been subjected to insult and abuse, the jury should include in his damages compensation for wounded feelings and humiliation and might award him punitive damages.
Exit the judgment must be reversed and the cause remanded for the reason that the instruction on the measure of damages given at the instance of plaintiff embodies prejudicial error. It is as folloxvs: “If the jury
The fault of this instruction is that it assumes as proved the facts stated as a basis for the award of damages. These facts were the subject of controversy between the parties, were at issue before the jury, and it must be presumed that defendant was prejudiced by the statement in the instruction which, in effect, told the jury that they had been established in favor of the contention of plaintiff and that the error was not cured by the giving of proper instructions at the request of defendant. [Haynor v. Excelsior Springs Heat & Water Company, — Mo. App. — ; Wilkerson v. Eilers, 114 Mo. l. c. 252; Stone v. Hunt, 94 Mo. 475.]
Further, we find, the court erred in permitting counsel for plaintiff, over the objection of defendant to refer in his opening statement to the jury to a subject about which the jury should not have been permitted to hear. But as the cause must be remanded for the error in the instruction just noted, we do not deem it necessary to say more than that a repetition of the offense should be avoided.
The judgment is reversed and the cause remanded.