52 Ind. App. 270 | Ind. Ct. App. | 1912
This is an appeal from a judgment against appellant for $1,500 damages, rendered in favor of appellee on account of alleged personal injuries. The issues were tendered by a complaint in one paragraph and a general denial thereto. There was a trial by a jury and a general verdict for appellee, accompanied by answers to interrogatories. Appellant filed a motion for judgment on such answers, which was by the court overruled, and this ruling presents the only error relied on.
The complaint is lengthy, and inasmuch as its sufficiency is not questioned, we will set out only the substance of such averments as we deem necessary to an understanding of the case and a consideration of the question presented by the motion.
Appellant insists that this case was tried by the lower court on the theory "that when a person is commissioned as a postal clerk or mail agent to handle United States mail on railroad trains, such person becomes a passenger ipso facto on such railroad, and the railroad has nothing to say either to create or prevent such relation.”
¥e are unable to reach the conclusion which appellant insists must follow from these answers. Great emphasis is placed on the word “sole” in interrogatories Nos. 7, 8 and 9 and it is insisted that this word, and the word “as” in interrogatory No. 23 negative the idea that appellee was on either train or the platform for any reason other than that he was a postal clerk, and that therefore he was not a passenger.
"We do not think the word “reason” as used in these interrogatories imports the meaning that appellant seeks to give it, or that it was, by the jury, understood to have such meaning. Reason is frequently used in the sense of “efficient cause” or motive. These answers simply import that the only reason appellee had for being on the train at all was that he was postal clerk, that he was on no other errand, and had no other business on the train, and that the “sole” and efficient reason for his being on the train and on the platform was because he was postal clerk.
Many other announcements, equally favorable to the general verdict as against the answers to interrogatories, might be quoted, hut enough has been indicated to require an affirmance of this judgment.
Judgment affirmed.
Note. — Reported in 98 N. E. 375. See, also, under (3) 3 Cyc. 980; (5) 38 Cyc. 1030; (6) 38 Cyc. 1909; (7, 8, 9) 38 Cyc. 1927. On the question of the liability of a carrier for injury to mail clerk, see 26 L. R. A. (N. S.) 1058; 6 Ann. Cas. 683; 11 Ann. Cas. 882.