9 Ga. App. 617 | Ga. Ct. App. | 1911
The petition alleged that the defendant company is a corporation existing under the laws of this State, owning and operating certain railway lines for the carriage of passengers, and also certain telegraph lines between the cities of Columbus and Atlanta. The plaintiff was in Columbus and had a 13-year-old son in Atlanta, and he desired that the son should come to Columbus without delay. The plaintiff went to the company’s office in Columbus and paid to the company’s agent $2.77, for which the agent promised to telegraph a “railway ticket”, to the son in Atlanta. Petitioner alleges that the defendant company was guilty of certain unreasonable and negligent delay in the delivery of the telegram and the ticket. The son, not having received the ticket, did not come at once, and this caused the father anxiety; he inquired of the railway company’s agent at Columbus, and the latter told him that the telegram and the ticket had been sent. Iiis anxiety became so great that he went to Atlanta and incurred certain expenses and lost three days from-his work. lie sued for these expenses; also for mental pain and suffering caused by his anxiety at his son’s not coming in response to his sending the ticket bv telegraph. Certain demurrers, both general and special, were filed. The court held that damages for the mental pain and suffering could not be recovered. As to the other damages alleged in the petition, the court sustained certain special demurrers on account of the indefiniten'ess of allegation, and gave the plaintiff opportunity to amend. The plaintiff refused to amend, and the court dismissed the entire petition. The plaintiff excepts.
The terms of the contract between the plaintiff and the railroad company in this case are not very explicitly alleged, but we think that we understand what the pleader means to say; and, as we understand it, what he charges is that he paid to the defendant’s agent in Columbus the price of a ticket from Atlanta to Columbus, with the understanding that the agent at Columbus would cause
However, the present case is clearly distinguishable from those cases, and if falls squarely within the purview of the decision in the case of Ogles v. Nashville, Chattanooga & St. Louis Ry., 130 Ga. 430 (60 S. E. 1040, 124 Am. St. R. 175). The headnote, which states the substance of the ruling in that case, is as follows: “A. paid his own money to a railroad agent, for which the agent agreed to issue a railroad ticket- and cause it to be delivered at a distant place to B., the married daughter of A., to be used by B. in traveling over the road of the agent’s principal, in coming to the home of A, The agent failed to issue the ticket, or to cause a ticket to bo issued and delivered to B. Because of failure to receive tlie ticket, B. was delayed in making the trip, and suffered injury. Suit was instituted against the railroad company by B., for damages alleged to have resulted from a breach of the contract.’ Held, that there was no privity of contract between B. and the
Construing the case as an action ex contractu, the damages sued for were too remote. They were not such damages as were naturally in the contemplation of the parties at the time of the making of the contract. Judgment affirmed.