Case Name: Henry Lehman vs. Louisiana Western Railroad Company
Court: Louisiana Supreme Court
Jurisdiction: Louisiana
Decision Date: 1885-07
Citations: 37 La. Ann. 705
Docket Number: No. 1245
Parties: Henry Lehman vs. Louisiana Western Railroad Company.
Judges: 
Reporter: Louisiana Annual Reports
Volume: 37
Pages: 705–708

Head Matter:
No. 1245.
Henry Lehman vs. Louisiana Western Railroad Company.
It is the clear duty of a railway carrier to provide safe egress from their cars for their passengers, to give due notice of arrival at stations, to allow passengers proper and sufficient time to alight, and to take care not to start the train while passengers are in the act of getting off. For negloct of such/duties, resulting in injury to passengers, the carrier is responsible.
When a passenger, with his wife and children, is in the act of alighting from the train stopped at a station, and when the wife, with an infant in her arms, having reached the lowor step of the car, is thrown violently to the ground by the sudden starting of the car, the husband’s act in jumping off to her assistance while the train is in motion and leaving his other children of tender years on the platform, one of whom is injured in attempting to jump off after her parents, is not such contributory negligence as debars recovery for injury to the child. The acts of both the/father and the child were the direct consequences/of defendant’s own "misconduct, and falls within the well-settled rule that contributory negligence cannot be set up as a defense when such negligence was the result of tremor or excitement produced by the defendant’s misconduct, or when/the latter1 puts/the plaintiff to a sudden election between the course which he took or submitting to a grave inconvenience.
APPEAL from the Twenty-fifth District Court, Parish of Lafayette. Be Baillion, J.
M. JS. Girard for Plaintiff and Appellee.
Z>. Gaffery for Defendant and Appellant:
1. In a suit against a corporation, the existense of the corporation must be set out. The court cannot judicially recognize ité existence. C. P. 112, 119,198; 34 Ann. 963; 28 Ann. 415.
2. A citation issued against a defendant, not a natural person nor alleged to be an artificialperson, and served, first, on “ the agent of the nondescript defendant; and, second, on an individual who accepts service for another agent, is null and cannot be the foundation of suit or judgment.” C. P. 198, 201; H. D. Citation; W. Nos. 2, 4, 6, 15.
3. When the circumstances of a case show that a party suing for damages for injury sustained from a railroad accident loft the train while in motion, without necessity and without being placed in peril by the road, no recovery can be had. Redfield on Railway, sec. 194; Hutchinson on Carriers, sec. 643; Leading Eng. and’Am. R. R. Cases, vol. 26, p. 351; 9 Ann. 441.
4. If in sucli.a’case'the^train stopped long enough to allow the passengers to get off at their station, and they lingered aboard beyond a reasonable and proper time to got off, the relation of carrier and passenger ceased, and the carrier is not answerable except for criminal negligence. Hutchinson, sec. 613; Redfield, sec. 613 ; Hutchinson, sec. 553.
5. Though defendant were in fault, if defendant’s negligent act was the proximate cause of the injury, no recovery can be had. 34 Ann. 778, 139, 182; 27 Ann. 54; 30 Ann. 20 ; 32 Aun. 615; 33 Ann. 154; 5 Ann. 514; 9 Ann. 441; 11 Ann. 292 ; Redfield on Railways, sec. 193; 3 Ed, Sedgwick, p. 495 ; 5 Otto 4U; Shearman and Redfield 25.
6. If the evidence shows that the injured child was traveling in company with and under the charge of her- parents, and she is non sui juris, their negligence is her negligence. Thompson on Negligence, vol. 2, pp. 118, 1183.
7. When the damages are excessive the verdict will be reduced.

Opinion:
The opinion of the Court was delivered by
Fenner, J.
The plaintiff, for the use and benefit of his minor child, Eva Lehman, sues the defendant for damages for injury to said child resulting from the alleged negligence of defendant or its employees.
He was met hy two exceptions, which must first be disposed of:
1. The first exception sets up want of legal citation, and denies the jurisdiction of the court on the ground that its domicile is in the parish of Orleans.
The charter of the company, Act 21 of 1878, assigns it no domicile in the State; provides that it may bo sued "only in the district courts of the parishes in which its railroad is constructed, of which the parish of Lafayette is one; and directs that service of process may be made "upon either the president, secretary, treasurer or any of the directors of said company resident in this State, or upon an agent or agents of the company resident in this State, and designated by the directors to receive such service."
Before instituting suit, plaintiff's attorney wrote to the general attorneys of the company, Messrs. Leovy & Kruttschnitt, of New Orleans, inquiring who were the agents, and received a reply designating A. C. Hutchinson and J. Gr. Schriever as such. Accordingly, the citation was served personally on Schriever, who also accepted service for Hutchinson. Neither by allegation nor proof is the agency denied. On the contrary, the proof, as far as it goes, sustains it.
The exception has no merit.
2. The other exception is that the petition does not allege or set forth that the defendant is a corporation, an association or a natural person.
.The defendant was sued in its.proper corporate name, and the objection was robbed of all force, if it had any, by the amendment made under direction of the judge.