31 Mo. 243 | Mo. | 1860
delivered the opinion of the court.
The plaintiff went aboard the steamer Sam Gaty, of which defendant was master, to escort a lady who wished to take passage on the boat to St. Louis, and was taken off as far as Clarksville, against his remonstrances. This suit is brought to recover damages for the alleged wrong done by the defendant.
The question upon which the defendant’s liability depends is chiefly one of fact, to-wit: whether a reasonable time was allowed the plaintiff to transact the business which took him on the boat before the boat was started from the landing. If there was not, then the additional inquiry arose, whether the conduct of the captain in refusing to put the plaintiff ashore, at his earnest and repeated solicitation, was wantonly wrong and unnecessarily offensive. The jury found these issues under instructions from the court for the plaintiff, and assessed his damages at three hundred dollars.
The points of law made in the case are, 1st, that the instructions given by the court are wrong; 2d, that those asked by the defendant should have been given; and, 3d, that the damages are excessive.
1. The first instruction given which leave the jury to say whether a reasonable time was given the plaintiff to transact
The testimony of all the plaintiff’s witnesses, who were present at the conversation between the plaintiff and defendant, is very explicit, that plaintiff insisted on being “landed” or being “put on shore;” that he specified no particular place, but desired to be put ashore, and stated his reason ; that he said to the captain that his family was sick, and offered to pay five dollars to be put ashore, and declared he would rather pay twenty than go on to Clarksville. The reply of the captain to these solicitations was that he would land him at Clarksville, and that he would not land him until the boat reached Clarksville. This conversation, it would seem, rendered any specification of particular landing points, by the plaintiff, superfluous. A refusal to land the plaintiff at all, until the boat reached Clarksville, was equivalent to a refusal to land at the intermediate points. Besides, it did not appear that the plaintiff knew of these landings, although it might well be inferred that the officers of the boat did. So that we see no objection to referring this matter to the jury, as the court did, and it is quite obvious that the verdict was based, not so much on the refusal of the captain to land the plaintiff at any particular point, as upon the manner of the refusal, of which the jury were the proper judges.
3. The damages given by the jury are large, larger perhaps than the circumstances in our judgment would warrant; but we have no power to supersede the estimate of the jury and substitute ours. There is nothing in the evidence or the result which would authorize an inference that the jury were actuated by any improper prejudice or passion. The conduct of the defenda'nt, as it appeared in evidence, was not such as to unite the sympathy of the jury. There was proof of a good deal of cool indifference to the remonstrance of the plaintiff, on the part of the defendant, not calculated to conciliate. He was apprised by the clerk of the circumstances under which the plaintiff had been detained, and the fact that the lady’s baggage was left ashore seems to confirm the uniform testimony of all the plaintiff’s witnesses that the boat made a very hurried, landing, and that no time was
Judgment affirmed.