66 Fla. 415 | Fla. | 1913
Statement.
The declaration alleges:'
.. “Nils Johnson, plaintiff, by Richard P. Daniels, Jr., and Lucien H. Boggs, his attorneys, sues Florida East Coast Railroad Company, a corporation, defendant, for this to-wit:—
That on to-wit: the first day of April, 1908, and at all times thereafter, the defendant was and is the owner of a certain line of railway, and a common carrier of passengers thereon for hire, to-wit: from St. Augustine,
Wherefore the plaintiff sues the defendant and claims Twenty Thousand Dollars damages.”
Among other pleas the following was filed: “And for a fifth plea the defendant says that the Jacksonville Terminal Company is a separate and independent corporation, engaged in receiving and delivering baggage to passengers going to and from Jacksonville, over whose employees and over which corporation the defendant has no control, and is not engaged in any way in its management, and that the said Jacksonville Terminal Company, its agents and servants are not the agents and servants of the defendant, except for the purpose of storing and delivering baggage discharged from defendant’s trains, and for no other purpose.” A demurrer to this plea on the grounds that it presents no defense, that it is not responsive to the declaration, and that it admits the agency of the terminal company, was overruled. The plaintiff refused to join issue on this plea or to file a replication thereto. Final judgment for the defendant was rendered, and the plaintiff took writ of error.
(after stating the facts.) — The dec'aration alleges that the defendant railroad company “makes use of * * * * * the terminal station of the Jacksonville Terminal Company for the discharge, care and reception of passengers alighting from (defendant’s) trains, and their baggage;” that the defendant transport
Under these allegations the negligence relied on by the plaintiff is “the negligence of the defendant, its agents, servants and employees in inviting him to enter upon said baggage platform which was not * * * a reasonably safe place, and in not maintaining said baggage platform in a reasonably safe condition.” It is alleged that the defendant railroad company “makes use of * * the terminal station of the Jacksonville Terminal Company, for the discharge., care and reception of passengers alighting from its trains, and their baggage,” and that the Jacksonville Terminal Company was the agent of the defendant railroad company “for the purpose of the care, accommodation and reception of
The plea in effect avers that the terminal company “is a separate and independent corporation, engaged in receiving and delivering baggage, * * * over whose employees and over which corporation the defendant has no control, and (the said defendant) is not engaged in any way in its management,” and that the terminal company, its agents and servants are not the agents and servants of the defendant, except for the purpose of storing and delivering baggage discharged from defendant’s trains.
It is contended for the defendant that the specifications of the demurrer to the plea viz: that it presents no defense to the action, that it is not responsive to the declaration, and that it admits the agency alleged, are not proper grounds of a demurrer, if they be appropriate in a mo.tion to strike the plea; and that the sufficiency in law of the plea as a defense to the declaration was not raised by the grounds of the demurrer.
Even if it can be said that the last two grounds of the demurrer do not properly question the legal sufficiency of the plea as a defense to the declaration as it is framed, the first specification is that the “plea presents no defense to the cause of action.” This general ground of demurrer considered in the light of the specific statements of the rather brief pleadings, is not wholly insufficient to present the question of the legal sufficiency of the plea as a defense to the action.
A demurrer is addressed to a plea as an entirety, and questions its legal sufficiency as the statement of a defense. If, considered as a whole, a plea does. not in substance sufficiently present all of the essential elements
Taken as a whole, the plea in substance avers that the terminal company is a separate and independent corporation engaged in receiving and delivering baggage to passengers, over whose employees the defendant has no control, and that as such separate and independent corporation the terminal company is the agent of the defendant only for the purpose of storing and delivering-baggage discharged from defendant’s trains. The question to be determined is whether the alleged negligence in inviting the plaintiff, a passenger alighting from the defendant’s train, to the baggage platform of the terminal company and the alleged dangerous position of the trunks on the platform, can legally be attributed to the defendant railroad company.
A primary duty of a railroad common carrier imposed by law is to maintain a suitable and safe place for the delivery of baggage to passengers at their destination on the carrier’s line; and in so far as it affects the safety of passengers- in the delivery of their baggage, this duty cannot be delegated to another, whether it be a separate and independent corporation or a mere employee, so as to relieve the carrier of its legal liability for an injury to the passenger caused by the negligence of those engaged in delivering baggage to a passenger on the premises used by the carrier for that purpose. See 2 Hutchinson on Carriers, Sec. 938. Whatever may be the rule of liability where injury is caused by the negligence of the employees- of an independent contractor in other instances and circumstances, it does not operate to relieve common carriers from their primary duty to
The averment of the quoted plea do not state the essential elements of a defense to the allegations of the declaration that “after plaintiff’s arrival in Jacksonville * "• the plaintiff at the invitation of the said Jacksonville Terminal Company, its agents and servants which was then and there the agent of said defendant for the purpose of the care, accommodation and reception of passengers and their baggage discharged from defendant’s trains, entered the baggage premises, to-wit, the baggage platform of said Jacksonville Terminal Company for the purpose of identifying his said baggage, and while so upon the baggage platform, one of a certain pile of trunks, carelessly, negligently and insecurely piled or left piled upon said platform, violently fell upon the plaintiff” and injured him.
The terminal company and its employees- while engáged on the depot premises in delivering baggage to a pássénger alighting there from defendant’s train, were perform
The judgment is reversed.