76 Md. 207 | Md. | 1892
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This is an action to- recover damages for the refusal by the defendant’s agent, to allow the plaintiff to pass through the gate to the train, then about to leave the Calvert Station.
The plaintiff, a lime burner by trade, bought of the defendant’s agent around trip‘ticket from Texas Station to Baltimore, good for two days and paid therefor sixty-
The defendant offered in evidence the following rule adopted by the defendant company in regard to defaced tickets: ''When outlawed or mutilated tickets, or tickets upon which the limit has expired, are presented p,t the gate, holders should be refused admittance to the trains,
The defendant it is claimed has the right to pass rules and regulations in regard to the admission of passengers to its trains, and that if the return coupon was defaced, and the date thereon illegible when it was exhibited to the gateman, and the latter referred the plaintiff to the receiver for his endorsement of the ticket, and the plaintiff refused to take it to the receiver, then he is not entitled to recover in this action, even though the jury should find that the ticket was not in fact defaced or blurred by the act of the plaintiff,- and was in the same-condition as when he got it from the-defendant’s agent at Texas Station. To this we cannot agree. The defendant has the right no doubt to pass rules and regulations in regard to the admission of passengers to its trains, provided such rules are reasonable rules, and do not subject, the passenger to unnecessary inconvenience and annoyance. It may, for its protection, require passengers-to exhibit their tickets to the gateman in passing to the train, and the latter may in the exercise of his judgment refuse to allow one to pass through the gate on a defaced ticket. But in this, as in other like matters, the-defendant is responsible for the wrongful and injurious exercise of judgment on the part of its agents. .The gate, as the record shows, is opened a few minutes only before the train is to leave the station. And how long it would take the receiver to examine and pass upon the validity of a ticket referred to him, depends as he testifies upon the circumstances. He would be obliged to see whether he had the corresponding coupon, and this might involve the examination he says in some cases of a thousand tickets. And to hold that a passenger who has bought a ticket, and in good faith presents it to the gateman in the same condition as when he got it from the ticket agent, is obliged to go to the receiver’s office
On the other hand, if the ticket was so blurred or defaced at the time it was delivered to him by the ticket agent at Texas Station, and it was presented at the gate in the same condition as when he got it, and the gate-man refused to allow him to pass, the plaintiff being himself without fault, was under no obligation to get the endorsement of the ticket receiver, and for such wrongful refusal by the gateman the defendant is liable. So the defendant has no reason to complain of the plaintiff’s first prayer nor of the rejection of its second prayer.
And this brings us to the question in regard to the measure of damages, and the law in this respect is well settled. In the absence of malice, or wantonness or circumstances of aggravation, the plaintiff was entitled to recover such damages only as were the immediate and necessary consequences resulting from the wrongful act of the defendant ; that is to say, the expenses incurred by him, by reason of the defendant’s refusal to allow him to enter its car, the amount paid for another ticket, compensation for loss of time, hotel expenses, if any, incurred, and, in addition to these, inconvenience suffered by him, may be ground of damages if it is such a.s is capable of being ascertained and assessed at a money value. Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, Company vs. Carr,
Nor can we agree, that these facts would warrant the jury in allowing not only such damages as they may find to have been the direct and immediate consequences of the defendant’s refusal to admit the plaintiff to its train, hut in addition thereto, such other damages as they may believe he has suffered in his person and feelings. The case of Phil., Wilm. and, Balto. R. R. Co. vs. Rice, 64 Md., 63, relied on in support of this instruction, differs widely from the case now before us. In Rice’s Case the plaintiff had purchased a round trip ticket from Wilmington to Philadelphia, and on the trip to Philadelphia the conductor by mistake cancelled the return coupon. Afterwards finding out his mistake, he attempted to correct it, by writing on the return coupon, “cancelled by mistake,” and handing it back to the plaintiff, said “I have fixed it all right now, you can ride on it.” The mistake, however, it seems was not corrected in accordance with the rules of the company, and when the plaintiff presented the coupon to the conductor on the train from Philadelphia to Wilmington, he refused to
There being error in granting the plaintiff’s second, fourth and fifth prayers, the judgment must be reversed, and new trial awarded.
Judgment reversed, and new trial awarded.