Case Name: George Miller, Respondent, v. John King and John G. McCullough, as Receivers of The New York, Lake Erie and Western Railroad Company, Appellants
Court: New York Supreme Court, Appellate Division
Jurisdiction: New York
Decision Date: 1898
Citations: 32 A.D. 389
Docket Number: 
Parties: George Miller, Respondent, v. John King and John G. McCullough, as Receivers of The New York, Lake Erie and Western Railroad Company, Appellants.
Judges: 
Reporter: Appellate Division Reports
Volume: 32
Pages: 389–392

Head Matter:
George Miller, Respondent, v. John King and John G. McCullough, as Receivers of The New York, Lake Erie and Western Railroad Company, Appellants.
Railroad—breach of contract by leaving a passenger at the wrong station—evidence as to the cost of transportation therefrom to his destination.
In an action to recover damages for the breach of a contract, by a railroad company, to furnish the plaintiff with railroad transportation between two points, in that he was left at a place some three miles distant from his destination, the company may properly prove what was the regular charge for the transportation of a passenger from the place where the plaintiff was left to tíre place of his destination, as affecting the damages which the plaintiff is entitled to recover.
Goodrich, P. J., dissented.
Appeal by the defendants, John King and John G. McCullough, as receivers of The New York, Lake Erie and Western Railroad Company, from a judgment of the Supreme Court in favor of the plaintiff, entered in the office of the clerk of Orange county on the 5th day of February, 1898, upon the verdict of a jury for $500 rendered after a trial at the Orange Trial Term, and also from an order entered in said clerk’s office on the 5th day of March, 1898, setting aside the verdict and granting a new trial, unless the plaintiff stipulates to reduce the verdict to .the sum of fifty dollars, in which event the motion for a new trial was to stand denied.
Henry Bacon, for the appellants.
John W. Lyon, for the respondent.

Opinion:
Per Curiam :
This case has been tried upon the theory approved by the Appellate Division on the second appeal. (Miller v. King, 21 App. Div. 192.) Unfortunately, however, an error has been committed in the exclusion of evidence offered by the defendants upon the question of damages which compels us to reverse the judgment.. It will be remembered that the contract of the defendant was to furnish the plaintiff with railroad transportation from Middletown to Sparrow-bush, whereas they left him at Port Jervis, a place some three miles distant from his destination. The defendants called as a'witness a lively stable man, resident in Port Jervis, whose business included the conveyance of persons from Port Jervis to Sparrowbush, This .witness was asked what was the regular charge for the transportation of a passenger between these two places, and an objection to the question was sustained by the court, to which ruling an exception was duly taken. The defendants^ were thus prevented from giving evidence which was plainly d'esigned to .show that the plaintiff could have procured a vehicle to take him from Port Jervis to Sparrow bush at an expense which -was trifling compared to the amount demanded in his complaint. We think the defendants were entitled to prove this fact. It may be that it would not have reduced the verdict, but, on the other hand, if the jury had been informed that transportation could readily have been obtained at an expense of a few. dollars, it may be that the verdict would have been very much. less than the amount to which it was reduced by the learned trial judge.
For this error the judgment and order appealed from must be reversed, and a new trial granted, costs to abide the event.
All concurred, except Goodrich, P. J., who read for affirmance.