252 Mo. 438 | Mo. | 1913
Lead Opinion
Suing for personal injuries in negligently ejecting plaintiff from .defendant railway company’s freight train, a jury returned him a verdict for $8500 in the Clinton Circuit Court. Prom a judgment following that verdict/ both defendants appeal, raising four questions only, viz.:
First: The' State court lost jurisdiction on the corporate defendant’s filing a petition for removal to the Federal court, hence the judgment is coram non judice.
Second: There was reversible error in not sustaining a demurrer to the evidence at the close of plaintiff’s case in chief, and, finally, in refusing to direct a verdict in favor of the corporate defendant at the close of the whole case.
Third: And similar error in admitting improper expert testimony.
Fourth: And similar error in instructing the jury that, if they found for plaintiff to find against both defendants, and in refusing an instruction contra.
Many exceptions were taken nisi, but appellants have pretermitted a group of them on final submission, the gist of the remainder being set forth above. Of those questions in their order, any facts necessary to an understanding and disposition of either appearing in that connection.
I. Of jurisdiction.
Appellants insist the trial court lost jurisdiction in this way: Prior to answering the corporate defendant filed its verified petition for a removal of the cause to the circuit court of the United States for the St. Joseph Division of the Western District of Missouri, and tendered its bond. On leave it filed affidavits sup-
The affidavits filed in support were, to the effect that Drake was not on top of his train on the trip from Lathrop to Cameron and neither conld attempt to, nor did eject any person from the train.
The petition for removal, was denied and defendants saved an exception.
■ The question is: Did that application oust the jurisdiction of the State court, and hence, were all the proceedings without jurisdiction?
“Plaintiff further states that on or about the 20th day of July, 1905, at or near the crossing of the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway Company at the town of Lathrop, Missouri, plaintiff, with the consent of, and under the direction, advice and invitation of the defendant railway company’s servant, on and operating, and assisting to operate the hereinafter mentioned train, boarded and got upon one of defendant railway company’s freight trains for the purpose of being transported thereon from said town of La-throp to said railway company’s station at Cameron, Missouri, and immediately after boarding said train plaintiff inquired of said servant of defendant railway company, who had so invited him onto said train, what the charge or fare would be for him to ride thereon to said station of Cameron, and said servant then and there informed plaintiff that the charge or fare would be twenty-five cents, and for plaintiff to pay him that sum and plaintiff did then and there pay said servant the said sum of twenty-five cents for the privilege of riding on said train to said station of Cameron; that afterwards, while plaintiff was so on said train and while said train was running at a high rate of speed and was near the station of Turney on said road, the defendant Drake, who was in the employ of said defendant, the Chicago, Bock Island & Pacific Bailway Company, as a conductor, and as such was defendant railway company’s conductor, agent and servant, on and in charge of said train, and while acting in the line of his duties to' defendant railway company as such conductor and agent, and in the course of his employment, approached plaintiff (who was then sitting
The ruling below was right, because: It was for plaintiff, not defendant, to elect who should be sued ■on a joint liability sounding in tort. When a plaintiff sues both corporate master and individual servant on ■a liability that appears on the face of his petition to be joint, the cause is not removable to the Federal ■court, although the master be a nonresident and not a citizen of the State, where, as here, the servant is a resident and citizen of the State. The presence of the resident citizen as a party defendant, carries the ease ■outside of the intendment of the Federal statute.
If there had been a question of fact on Drake’s •citizenship and residence we might have had a different question to deal with. So, if the negligence of the ■servant had been a mere act of nonfeasance instead of one of misfeasance, as it was, there might have been a
The question whether a removal should go always harks back to the allegations of plaintiff’s statement of his cause of action in his petition. Removability, in that feature of it, becomes a mere question of law, with, which it was the duty and right of the State court to deal in the first instance. If the controversy as stated raised a joint liability and was not on the face of the petition separable, an inquiry into the secret motives of plaintiff in joining defendants and seeking a recovery from both, such as defendants here rely on, is of no efficacy in determining either jurisdiction or liability.
So patent is the joint liability in the instant case that if Drake had been acquitted, the corporate defendant would have escaped too, as a matter of law. [McGinnis v. Railroad, 200 Mo. 347.]
The question, long vexed, is one whereon the law may yet be in a fluid or formative state and the last word not spoken. But there is a body of learning in our own reports following the final arbiter in that behalf and sustaining the views just announced. A mere reference to those cases suffices. [Lanning v. Railroad, 196 Mo. 1. c. 656 et seq.; Stotler v. Railroad, 200 Mo. 1. c. 117 et seq.; Johnson v. Railways, 203 Mo. 1. c. 398 et seq.; State ex rel. v. Mosman, 231 Mo. 474-a case in which, on certiorari, we quashed an order granting a removal; Schwyhart v. Barrett, 145 Mo. App. 1. c. 344 et seq.; State ex rel. v. Dearing, 244 Mo. 1. c. 37.]
Those cases were ruled on the authority of decisions delivered by the highest court in the land on Federal questions.
Diligent counsel on both sides have cited us to later decisions in the Supreme Court of the United States, but they do not modify the rulings on which the Lan
“The joint liability of the defendants under the declaration as amended is a matter of State law, and upon that we shall not attempt to go behind the decision of the highest court of the State before which the question could come. [Southern R. R. Co. v. Miller, 217 U. S. 209, 215, 216.] . . . Again, the motive of the plaintiff, taken by itself, does not affect the right to remove. If there is a joint liability, he has an absolute right to enforce it, whatever the reason that makes him wish to assert the right. [Chicago, B. & Q. R. R. Co. v. Willard, 220 U. S. 413, 427; Illinois C. R. R. Co. v. Sheegog, 215 U. S. 308, 316.] Hence, the fact that the company is rich- and Barrett poor does not affect the case.
“The remaining justification for the charge of fraudulent intent is that no cause of action was stated against Barrett. That again is a question of State law, and that the plaintiff had such a cause of action in fact must be taken now to he established.”
The premises considered, the point is ruled against appellants.
II. Of the demurrer (and herein of the mandatory instruction).
At the close of plaintiff’s case in chief, demurrers to the evidence were overruled. But neither of defendants was content to stand on those demurrers. Contra, they went on and put in their -own proof. In
(a) “When that course is taken, a working and primer rule in this jurisdiction is this: A defendant uniting the two functions of demurring and then not standing on his demurrer hut going on and putting in his own proof thereby in so far forth waives his demurrer that he elects to have the matter judged of by the whole evidence precisely as if on an instruction at the close of the case to direct a verdict. Hence in this case a .consideration of the instruction to direct a verdict will cover the dual assignment. [Stauffer v. Railroad, 243 Mo. 1. c. 316; McPherson v. Railroad, 97 Mo. 253.]
(b) Moreover, back of everything is the guiding rule that where plaintiff has a verdict, as here, then, in ruling a demurrer to the evidence (or a mandatory instruction filling the office of one), appellate courts accept plaintiff’s evidence as true whether contradicted or not by defendant’s proof (so long as it is not impossible as opposed to the conceded physics of the case, or as beyond all reason or where perjury is patent). They assume defendant’s testimony as false where contradicted by plaintiff’s proof. They leave to the jury to settle the weight due testimony, the credit due witnesses and to reconcile contradictions or smooth away inaccuracies, if any, in the proof. Withal, they allow to plaintiff the grace of every reasonable inference of fact arising in his favor on any of the substantial proof. [Stauffer v. Railroad, 243 Mo. 1. c. 316; Cohn v. Kansas City, 108 Mo. 1. c. 392; Wright v. Kansas City, 187 Mo. 1. c. 691; Fritz v. Railroad, 243 Mo. 1. c. 77.]
May not one with propriety (when the yeast of radical novelty is working in judicial dough and one does not know what the loaf to be baked in the oven of events may be), take leave to recur to first principles and observe, to-wit, that the invention of a jury
It cannot be said too often that it is that average reasonable sense of the average jury that courts seek for and delight in in settling controversies of fact between man and’ .man. Agreeable thereto are many wise and brave words by many wise and grave men, as the curious may verify by consulting: Railroad v. Stout, 17 Wall. 1. c. 664; Fetter v. Fidelity & Casualty Co., 174 Mo. 1. c. 266; Jefferson’s First Inaugural Address, March 4, 1801. “The jury are the best doctors of doubt that we know of. ’ ’ [Per Bleakley, J., in Central Railroad Co. v. Ferguson, 63 Ga. 1. c. 85.] “It
The deference allowed on appeal to the trial chancellor in an equity case on the facts, when the evidence is oral (Creamer v. Bivert, 214 Mo. 1. c. 479 et seq.) transmutes itself into a preclusive prerogative in a jury in a law case, ex necessitate rei. So that it has long since passed into a maxim that judges respond to questions of law and juries respond to questions of fact. [Ad guaestionem, etc., Coke Litt. 295.]
It is in the light of the foregoing, and not otherwise, that the mandatory instruction must he reviewed,
(c) As it searches the facts, they follow, to-wit:
There is no dispute worth while but that on the 20th day of July, 1905, the corporate defendant ran a freight train in charge of its codefendant Drake, as Conductor, from Lathrop to Cameron. It left Lathrop in the shank of the evening and was a “through freight” that did not stop at Turney (an intermediate way-station) and usually did not carry passengers. Plaintiff was- a country boy, humbly bred, living in DeKalb county, close to Cameron. He testified, and no one gainsaid it, that he never rode on a train before. He appears to have been about seventeen years of age, a fact determinable by his. age of twenty at the trial three years later. There is testimony he had earned as high as thirty dollars a month as a farm hand, but he had been working mostly for his father in the routine labors of farm life. On the said day in July he took a day off for a lark, went to Cameron to see a circus and thence on a train with some comrades to Turney, and thence on to Lathrop. There
Plaintiff brought three suits on his cause of action. In one of them, instituted over a year after the event, he asked only $1000 actual damages but included another $1000 for smart money. The petition in that case, for obvious reasons, was read into this record by defendants. In the present case, brought three years after the event, he asked $15,000 compensatory damages. Besides the admission made in his former petition, there was evidence tending, if believed, to show that plaintiff’s case had grown and improved with age. All this, however, is, secundum regulam, a closed and sealed book on this record.
It is shown that Conductor Drake had authority, as one of his duties, to put off trespassers from his train. It was shown on the issue of his being kicked off or jumping off, that plaintiff from the outset told one unvarying story, namely, that he was- kicked off— this from an hour or so after the event, when he got
The foregoing facts may be taken as undisputed. But on all other vital ones there is irreconcilable dis-agreement.
Omitting detáils in giving disputed facts and confining ourselves to the tendency of the proof, the case is this:
(Note: In the narration of facts following, which plaintiff’s testimony tends to prove, the testimony of defendants must be taken as throughout in practically direct conflict with plaintiff’s. In fact, as the cold record reads, the countervailing testimony of defendants sharply preponderates and if the jury had believed defendants’ instead of plaintiff’s, no fault could have been found.)
Plaintiff introduced testimony to prove that on the platform of the depot at Lathrop he asked one of the trainmen if- he could ride back to Cameron on the freight train then at the depot; that getting permission he climbed the ladder to the top of a box car and seated himself, his feet projecting over the edge. Whether his feet merely projected or his legs dangled from the knees down is not clear. That shortly after the train started a brakeman came up to plaintiff, and, conversing with him, collected twenty-five cents for his fare to Cameron and then went on to the head of the train; that just as the train got to Turney defendant Drake came out of the cupola of his caboose, approached him with a lantern and with a vile epithet inquired what plaintiff was doing there and thereupon lacked him violently in the small of the back' off of the train. In his fall he received the injuries for which he presently sued. Contra, testimony from all the brakemen and the conductor went in tending to show that plaintiff was not seen by any one of them to get. on, or to be on top of the train during the trip, and that he (or no one else) was lacked off *by the con
The foregoing is sufficient statement of the tendency of the proof on which to rule the mandatory instruction.
We think it soundly ruled below, .this' because:
It would be mere ostentatious display of industry .and learning to analyze the fourscore cases appellants •cite to sustain their contention that the corporate defendant is not liable on the facts of this record, nor
Both sides have cited cases of that sort from other jurisdictions, but our own cases are rich enough in learning to point the way to a proper disposition of the instant case, and on the authority of those cases we must hold with respondent on the point.
Assuming Drake kicked respondent off the moving-train, as we must under the verdict, there is not a particle of testimony tending to show he was acting for himself for private ends or otherwise .than about his duties in ridding the train of a trespasser. We pause to ask: Are we to airily suppose that Drake was booting trespassers (unknown to him and with whom he had no personal quarrel) from his master’s trains in the nighttime for the mere fun of it? Or like Don Quixote was seeking knightly adventures' in righting
We will cite a few cases in point, others will he found in the Reporter’s headnotes to this opinion. [Garretzen v. Duenckel, 50 Mo. 104, a leading case often cited in this as well as in other jurisdictions; Perkins v. Railroad, 55 Mo. 201; Farber v. Railroad, 116 Mo. 81; Brill v. Eddy, 115 Mo. 596; Haehl v. Railroad, 119 Mo. 325; Farber v. Railroad, 139 Mo. 272.]
Finally, we stress the fact that both sides by instructions submitted to the jury the question whether (1) the conductor kicked plaintiff off the train and (2) whether in so doing he was acting within his employment in the line of duty and about his master’s business. Those were issues of fact for the jury, and were found by them for respondent. We have no authority to disturb their finding.
It provokes some interest in this connection to note that on appeal on the point raised on the petition for removal, appellants insist railway company is alone liable and Drake was improperly joined; while on the merits on appeal they insist Drake alone is liable and it is not liable. Is that not facing both ways ?
The point is ruled against appellants.
III. Of improper expert testimony.
In assigning error in that regard appellants neither in briefs nor argument put their finger on any question or testimony afflicted with any vice. The la
But, being left to our own resources, we have read that testimony • critically and see no error affecting the merits.
IV. Of alleged error in instructions.
Under this head appellants assign error in two particulars — one in giving, one in refusing, instructions. . •
(a) The court instructed the jury for respondent in part as follows:
“1. The court instructs the jury that if they believe from the evidence that on the 20th day of July, 1905, plaintiff at or near the station of Lathrop, got upon a freight train of defendant, the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific Railway Company, for the purpose of being transported from said station to Cameron, and that defendant Drake was at said time said railway company’s conductor and servant on and in charge of said train; and if you further find from the evidence that while plaintiff was so on said train at said date, and while said train was running through or near the station of Turney, the defendant Drake, as such conductor and servant, while in charge of said train and in the line of his duties to said railway company, approached plaintiff and wrongfully and with great and unusual force and violence kicked, forced and ejected plaintiff from said train to the ground, whereby he was*461 injured, then the defendants are liable in this case, and the jury will return a verdict for the plaintiff and against both of the defendants.”
“4. The court instructs the jury that if they find for plaintiff, and against both the defendants, their verdict*may be in the following form:
“ ‘We, the jury, find for plaintiff and against both of the defendants herein and assess his damages at -dollars.’ ”
We perceive no error in those instructions, the ones challenged. The point made is that the instruction includes both defendants. But if they found the facts hypothesized in instruction number 1, then both defendants were guilty and the court did right in telling the jury to so find. Instruction number 4 followed inevitably as a sequence. It was left, then, to defendants to put any other allowable theory to the jury and this they did, with the consent of the court, in part as follows:
• “1. The court instructs the jury that if they shall find from the evidence that the defendant, F. M. Drake, was conductor on the train mentioned in the testimony and that he did not go out upon the top of the cars of said train while the same was going from the station of Lathrop to Cameron, you will find for the defendant, F. M. Drake.
“3. The court instructs the jury that the plaintiff was a trespasser on the train mentioned in the evidence and that the defendants, or either of them, owed him no duty or obligations as a passenger on such train.
“4. If the jury shall find and believe from the evidence that the plaintiff was on said train, intending to alight at the station of Turney, and that he voluntarily alighted from said train while the same was in motion and was injured, you must find for the defendants.
“5. If the jury shall find and believe from the evidence that the plaintiff at or about the time claimed in the petition boarded the train, intending to ride*462 to the station of Turney, and that when said train failed to stop at said station the plaintiff at or near the north end of said station of Turney voluntarily alighted from said train, you must find for defendants.
“7. The court instructs the jury that if they find from the evidence that the train mentioned in the evidence was a freight train, which, under the rules and directions of the defendant railway company, did not and was not permitted to carry passengers, and that the plaintiff got upon said train without the permission of the conductor thereof, then, in such ease, he was not a passenger, hut a trespasser on such train, and unless you shall find from the evidence that the conductor, F. M. Drake, the defendant herein, actually did kick the plaintiff from said train while the same was in rapid motion, you must find for both defendants.
“16. If the jury find from the evidence that the train on which the plaintiff was riding was a ‘through freight,’ not ordinarily carrying passengers and not scheduled to stop at the station of Turney, you should find for the defendant railway company, unless it has been shown to your satisfaction by the evidence that the conductor of such train was required by his duties to said company to put off trespassers found thereon and that in this case the defendant, Drake, did while acting within the scope of his employment kick plaintiff from said train while in motion as mentioned in another instruction.”
The jury were not coerced by those instructions to find against both unless both were liable.
, (b) Appellants asked certain instructions which were refused. They, in some instances, involved the same propositions in instructions already given, in other instances they did not declare the law of the case. We will not reproduce them here.
The point is disallowed to appellants and with such ruling it follows that the judgment should be affirmed. It is so ordered. . .
Dissenting Opinion
DISSENTING- OPINION.
It is conceded by all parties to this snit, in both oral arguments and printed briefs, that the plaintiff was not a passenger upon the train of defendant at the time of his injury, but was a trespasser pure and simple. In fact, that was the theory upon which the case was tried below, and the circuit court so instructed the jury. Therefore, the appellant owed him no duty as a passenger nor did its agents and servants in charge of the train.
The respondent’s evidence tended to show, and if true, he was a trespasser upon the top of appellant’s train, and when it reached Turney, he was seated on the top of the car, with his feet hanging over the side; that at that time the conductor of the train climbed hp on the top of the car, approached respondent, and with a vile epithet, inquired what' he was doing there, and without further ado, violently kicked him off of the top of the car.
I am firmly and unalterably of the opinion that those facts, even conceded to be true, do not render the appellant liable for the injuries thereby inflicted upon the respondent; and my reason for so holding is that the conductor was not acting within the scope of his employment, and therefore the doctrine of respondeat superior does not apply.
And with all due respect for the opinion of my learned associate, I am firmly of the opinion that none of the cases cited in the majority opinion or in briefs of respondent so hold.
The case of Garretzen v. Duenckel, 50 Mo; 104,' the case upon which all the'others are based, while properly decided on the facts of that case, has no' earthly application to the facts of the cáse at bar.
Brewer, in that case, would have been a criminal and Duenckel would not have been responsible for the shooting. So in the case at bar, if Drake, the conductor, assaulted respondent in the manner and under the conditions the respondent claims he did, then he was not acting within the scope of his authority, but his acts were those of a criminal and he and not the railroad company should be punished therefor. [Jackson v. St. Louis, Iron Mountain & Southern R. R. Co.,. 87 Mo. 422, 1. c. 430; Stringer v. Missouri Pacific Ry. Co., 96 Mo. 1. c. 300; Farber v. Missouri Pacific Ry. Co., 116 Mo. 1. c. 93; Walker v. Hannibal & St. Joseph Ry. Co., 121 Mo. 575, 1. c. 584.]
Moreover, it should be borne in mind that freight trains are not generally designated or used for the transportation of passengers, but are used in the transportation of dumb brutes and inanimate objects, and not human beings, and under those conditions it cannot and should not be presumed that Drake, the conductor, was acting, within the scope of his employment,, when he kicked the respondent from the car, especially when, as we all know, it is not only physically possible, but it frequently occurs that an employee like any other human being, while performing his ordinary duties, steps aside momentarily therefrom, and com
So, if as in the Jackson case, supra, the.railroad company was not responsible for the unlawful act of-the conductor in accepting a passenger against his will, then how much stronger is the reason for holding that the appellant in this case is not responsible for the unlawful act of Drake in kicking respondent from the train, who was not a passenger, and especially where Drake had no authority whatever- to represent the. appellant in the transportation of passengers.
I, therefore, dissent from the majority opinion.