Case Name: BUSCH v. INTERBOROUGH RAPID TRANSIT CO.
Court: New York Supreme Court, Appellate Term
Jurisdiction: New York
Decision Date: 1905-05-02
Citations: 93 N.Y.S. 372
Docket Number: 
Parties: BUSCH v. INTERBOROUGH RAPID TRANSIT CO.
Judges: 
Reporter: West's New York Supplement
Volume: 93
Pages: 372–374

Head Matter:
BUSCH v. INTERBOROUGH RAPID TRANSIT CO.
(Supreme Court, Appellate Term.
May 2, 1905.)
Actions—Tobt—Jurisdiction—Municipal Court.
A complaint alleging that plaintiff became a passenger of defendant for the purpose of being carried on one of its cars, and, in consideration of five cents paid, defendant agreed to safely carry him and treat him properly; that he, after paying the fare, entered on one of defendant’s stations, and defendant, through its employés, in violation of said contract, assaulted plaintiff and maltreated him, and caused officers to assault and arrest him, without any provocation, and to detain him forcibly under arrest, without warrant or cause—states a cause of action for assault and battery and false imprisonment, and not one for breach of contract of carriage, and therefore one not within the jurisdiction of the Municipal Court.
Greenbaum, J., dissenting.
Appeal from Municipal Court, Borough of Manhattan, Seventh District.
Action by Emanuel A. Busch against the Interborough Rapid Transit Company. From a judgment for plaintiff, defendant appeals. Reversed.
Argued before SCOTT, P. J., and LEVENTRITT and GREEN-BAUM, JJ.
Charles A. Gardiner (Theodore L. Waugh, of counsel), for appellant.
Charles Goldzier, for respondent.

Opinion:
SCOTT, P. J.
The complaint states a cause of action for assault and battery and false imprisonment, and for nothing else. Of such an action the Municipal Court has not jurisdiction. Fister v. Met. St. Ry. Co., 30 Misc. Rep. 430, 62 N. Y. Supp. 467. As was said in the case cited:
"The character of the action must be determined by the substantial allegations of the-complaint, and, when the averments are such as to indicate that the whole scope and purpose of the action is to recover for alleged wrongs, the plaintiff cannot recover for a breach of contract."
The case made by the complaint entirely differentiates this action from those in which a passenger upon a car has been injured by the manner and method of his eviction. Kearns v. N. Y., etc., R. Co. (Sup.) 86 N. Y. Supp. 179; Hines v. Dry Dock, etc., R. Co., 75 App. Div. 391, 78 N. Y. Supp. 170; Hart v. Met. St. Ry. Co., 65 App. Div. 493, 72 N. Y. Supp. 797. In each of those the gravamen of the complaint was the failure of the defendant to perform the obligation which it had assumed'to safely transport the passenger. Here the defendant refused to assume the obligation. The case is not unlike Palmeri v. Man. Ry. Co., 133 N. Y. 201, 30 N. E. 1001, 16 L. R. A. 136, 28 Am. St. Rep. 632, but that was clearly an action which could not have been brought in the Municipal Court.
The judgment must be reversed and the complaint dismissed, with costs in this court and the court below.
LEVENTRITT, J., concurs.