Case ID: misc_56/html/0637-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Guy, J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Louis Brown, Respondent, v. The Interborough Rapid Transit Company, Appellant.
    (Supreme Court, Appellate Term,
    December, 1907.)
    Carriers — Carriage of passengers — Contract for transportation — Performance by carrier.
    A passenger upon an elevated -railroad train who, having been carried beyond his destination while asleep, seeks to board a return train without paying additional fare and is forcibly prevented cannot maintain an action against the company for breach of their contract of carriage as the contract had been fully performed when the passenger had been carried to his destination where he failed to alight.
    
      . Appeal by the defendant from a judgment in favor of the plaintiff, rendered in the Municipal Court of the city of Hew York, fourth district, borough of Manhattan.
    Charles A. Gardiner (William E. Weaver, of counsel), for appellant.
    Henry Lieb, for respondent.
   Guy, J.

The plaintiff brought this action “and recovered a judgment, upon a complaint setting forth in substance that, while the plaintiff was a passenger on one of the defendant’s north bound trains, he was assaulted by the employees of the defendant, the gravamen of the cause of action being a breach of contract of carriage by the defendant. The facts appearing upon the trial are substantially undisputed and are briefly as follows: On March 19, 1907, the plaintiff boarded one of the defendant’s elevated railroad trains at Eighth street and Second avenue, his destination being One Hundred and Twenty-first street station. When the train reached One < Hundred and Twenty-first street, the plaintiff was asleep; and'he remained on the train until" it reached One Hundred and Twenty-ninth street, at which station he left the train. He then crossed the street to another station in order to reach the defendant’s south bound cars, for the purpose of taking a south bound train to be carried back to his destination which he had missed while asleep. When he attempted to board the south bound train, he was stopped by one of the defendant’s employees who inquired if the plaintiff had a ticket. The plaintiff answered “ Ho, I do not need any ticket.” He persisted in his attempt to get on the south bound train without paying -any fare, the defendant’s employees in charge of the train resorted to force to prevent the plaintiff from boarding the train. It is clear that, at the time the alleged assault was committed, the relationship of carrier and passenger between the parties had ceased to exist, and the defendant was engaged in an attempt to obtain pas- . sage upon a south bound train, with the avowed intent of paying no fare. The defendant had fully performed its contract when it carried the plaintiff on its north bound train to his destination and was under no obligation to furnish him a return passage free of charge. The case of Busch v. Interborough R. T. Co., 110 App. Div. 705, has no application to the case at bar.

Gildersleeve and Bruce, JJ., concur.

Judgment reversed, with costs, and complaint dismissed.