Case Name: KELLY v. NEW YORK CITY RY. CO.
Court: New York Supreme Court, Appellate Division
Jurisdiction: New York
Decision Date: 1907-05-24
Citations: 104 N.Y.S. 561
Docket Number: 
Parties: KELLY v. NEW YORK CITY RY. CO.
Judges: 
Reporter: West's New York Supplement
Volume: 104
Pages: 561–568

Head Matter:
(119 App. Div. 223)
KELLY v. NEW YORK CITY RY. CO.
(Supreme Court, Appellate Division, First Department.
May 24, 1907.)
Carriers—Street Railroads—Transfers—Change of Direction.
Railroad Law, Laws 1892, p. 1406, c. 676, § 104, requires every street railroad company to carry, between any two points on the roads over which it has the right to run cars, any passenger desiring to make one continuous trip between such points for one single fare and without extra charge, and to give the passenger a transfer entitling him to a continuous trip to any point on such road, for the promotion of public convenience. Held, that such section did not prevent a street railway company from adopting a regulation requiring passengers making use of transfers to use the same only in the same general direction of their initial trip.
[Ed. Note.—For cases in point, see Cent. Dig. vol. 9, Carriers, §§ 1060-1062.]
McLaughlin and Scott, JJ., dissenting.
Appeal from Appellate Term.
Action by Peter C. Kelly- against the New York City Railway Company. From an order of the Appellate Term (102 N. Y. Supp. 742), reversing a judgment in favor of defendant in an action to recover a penalty for defendant’s failure to receive a transfer under Railroad Law, Laws 1892, p. 2107, c. 565, § 104, defendant appeals.
Reversed and remanded.
The plaintiff boarded a south-bound car of the defendant on Third avenue at Bayard street, paid a fare of five cents, and was given a transfer to a Chambers Street car going in a westerly direction. This transfer was shown to the conductor of the Chambers Street car and retained by the plaintiff, who changed to a north-bound Greenwich Street car, his destination being Greenwich and Leonard streets. The conductor of the Greenwich Street car, under a rule of the defendant, refused to honor this transfer, going in a reverse direction from that in which the plaintiff had started, and the latter was obliged to pay a second fare. This action is brought to recover the penalty of $50 prescribed by section 104 of the railroad law (Laws 1892, p. 2107, c. 565), and the broad question presented upon this appeal is whether the rule or regulation of the defendant, requiring passengers to make use of transfers only in the same general direction of their initial trip, is a reasonable regulation, and consistent with the terms of the statute here under consideration. The learned Municipal Court held that this rule was a reasonable one, relieving the defendant of the penalty prescribed, and the Appellate Term has reversed that judgment. The appeal by permission comes to this court.
Argued' before PATTERSON, P. J., and McLAUGHLIN, HOUGHTON, SCOTT, and LAMBERT, JJ.
Paul D. Cravath and James L. Quackenbush, for appellant.
Paul M. Pelletreau, for respondent.
Joseph G. Williamson, Jr., E. V. R. Ketchum, and John Loew, for parties .intervening.

Opinion:
LAMBERT, J.
Section 4, par. 8, of the railroad law (Laws 1890, p. 1084, c. 565), provides that a corporation shall have power "to regulate the time and manner in which passengers and property shall be transported, and the compensation to be paid therefor."^ This power must be exercised in subordination to the law and within reasonable limitations. There came a time in the history of the transportation facilities of the state when it was deemed wise and beneficial to the public to permit of the consolidation of street surface railroads, by lease or otherwise, and to preserve the rights of the public, under the increased powers of these corporations, it was provided by section 104 of the railroad law as follows:
"Every such corporation entering into such contract shall carry, or permit any other party thereto to carry, between any two points on the railroads or portions thereof embraced in such contract any passenger desiring to make one continuous trip between such points, for one single fare, not higher than the fare lawfully chargeable by either of such corporations for an adult passenger. Every such corporation shall upon demand, and without extra charge, give to each passenger paying one single fare a transfer, entitling such passenger to one continuous trip to any point or portion of any railroad embraced in such contract, to the end that the public convenience may be promoted by the operation of the railroads embraced in such contract substantially as a single railroad with a single fare. For every refusal to comply with the requirements of this section the corporation so refusing shall forfeit fifty dollars to the aggrieved party. The provisions of this act shall only apply to railroads wholly within the limits of any one incorporated city or village."
The law reads into all statutes and all contracts the element of good faith (Industrial & G. T., Ltd., v. Todd, 180 N. Y. 215, 225, 226, 73 N. E. 7. It was conceded upon the argument that there is no controlling decision upon the exact question here presented. We are, therefore, to determine by the application of known rules the proper construction of the statute, and the limitations which it imposes upon the defendant in the case now before us. The lawmaking power had in contemplation in the passage of the act in question the practical efficiency of the means of transportation. The design was to permit a passenger to proceed along the line of connecting surface railroads, so that he might reach his point of destination with the greatest practical ease and economy. It was "to the end that the public convenience may be promoted" that this provision was inserted, and the public convenience requires of all street surface railroads, not only that they shall deliver each passenger at the termination of his journey, no matter how circuitous the route may be, but that such passenger shall be carried by the most direct and practical route to the nearest point to which he desires to go; regard being had to his purpose and convenience. Suppose, for instance, that we are at Union Square, and desire to go to the Fifth Avenue Hotel, opposite Madison Square. The Broadway cars will take us directly past the hotel by traveling a few blocks, and every consideration of public convenience is served by that line. But we could take a Fourth Avenue car to Forty-Second street, thence by another car to Broadway, and down Broadway to the Fifth Avenue Hotel, thus making a circuitous route. _ If the plaintiff's construction of the statute is right, this suppositious case could be complicated by a great variety of transfers. This does not embrace any element of public convenience. It would be merely an indulgence of an individual desire to ride, rather than a purpose "to make one continuous trip between such points." The trip, whatever we may say of its continuity, would not be "between such points," but would be outside of them. It would not be an evidence of good faith on the part of a passenger, to which a public corporation is entitled; and this has been held by the courts of this state. An individual may have the time to work out and indulge in these freakish trips; but the public has no interest in them, and that was the purpose of the Legislature in giving the right to enforce a private remedy, to the end that the "public convenience may be promoted by the operation of the railroads embraced in such contract substantially as a single railroad with a single rate of fare." The public convenience, not the' indulgence of individual caprice, is to be served, and this is to be accomplished, or "promoted" (to use the language of the statute), "by the operation of the railroads substantially as a single railroad with a single rate of fare."
What is necessary, then, to the operation of these railroads substantially as a single railroad? This question has been judicially answered in principle in the case of Bennett v. N. Y. C. & H. R. R. R. Co., 69 N. Y. 594, 25 Am. Rep. 250. In that case the plaintiff bought a ticket from Lockport to Troy. No route was indicated. The railroad operated two lines between Rochester and Syracuse. One of them, a direct line over which it habitually operated its regular through trains, was 81 miles long; and the other was 104 miles. The plaintiff left the through train, at Rochester, and took a train over the older and longer route by way of Auburn. After leaving Auburn the conductor demanded an extra fare, and on the plaintiff refusing to pay more he was ejected from the car, and brought his action to recover damages. He was nonsuited upon the trial, and the judgment was affirmed by the General Term and the Court of Appeals. In discussing the contract of the carrier the court say:
"It seems to me that it was a contract to carry the plaintiff over the usual, through, and most direct route, and nothing more. The defendant is restricted to a charge of two cents a mile. It does not appear that the plaintiff paid any more than that sum for the 81 miles over the usual route. The through train from Lockport passes over the direct route, and the plaintiff must have changed cars at Rochester and taken another train. He may have supposed that the ticket entitled him to go by any road which the defendant owned, however indirect, and regardless of the distance traveled. In this I think he was mistaken. The ticket was a through ticket, and impliedly over the through route. The company was not bound to take him over any and all of their roads which might terminate at the same point. A ticket from Al bany to Buffalo would not entitle the holder to go by way of Niagara Falls, although the company owns the road all the way round, and I do not see why the company would not be liable to a penalty for charging by way of the Falls for a ticket to Buffalo, unless on notice."
And, continuing:
"I am of opinion that it was a contract to carry the plaintiff over the direct route, and not one to carry him over an unusual, roundabout way, 23 miles farther."
Is there any difference in a contract where a passenger buys a ticket between two named points, and a contract growing out of the payment of a single fare upon a street surface railroad pursuant to statute? Is not the contract implied that the company will carry the passenger from the point where he comes on board to the nearest practical point upon its lines to the proposed destination of the passenger by the shortest and most direct route and not by some fanciful, roundabout way? To our mind the inquiry carries its own answer. A careful examination of the maps in evidence, in connection with the scheme of transfers as it was "developed upon the trial, shows that a passenger might, by traveling in the same general direction, by means of crosstown lines, reach within a few blocks almost any point within the territory which the defendant attempts to cover, and for a single fare; and, as this is all that a "single railroad with a single rate of fare" under the laws of this state is expected to do, it cannot be said that any purpose of section 104 of the railroad law is being defeated by the rule which accomplishes the result mentioned. And it cannot be doubted that the system of transfers now in force does operate to accomplish this purpose, or that this system is in harmony with the power to "regulate the time and manner in which passengers and property shall be transported." As was stated in Bennett v. N. Y. C. & H. R. R. Co., 5 Hun, 599:
"There was nothing unreasonable, therefore, in requiring him to pay more, for the reason that the defendants were rendering him more service than was necessary for them to do in order to fulfill the contract to carry him from Rochester to Troy."
In Wimmer v. Union Traction Company, 12 Pa. Super. Ct. 467, the city had, in granting the franchise to the defendant, provided that "the said railway company shall run cars over their entire line at intervals not exceeding five minutes," and that the "rate of fai;e to be charged for a single continuous ride over the entire line shall not exceed the present fare," etc. The line operated appears to have been a loop. The plaintiff entered a car going west several blocks distant from the turning point and paid his fare. He remained upon the car until it rounded the loop, going east in the direction he desired to travel, and, the second fare being demanded, he refused to pay, and was ejected from the car, bringing an action for damages. The plaintiff took the grounds, asserted in substance by the plaintiff in the case at bar, that he had the legal right under the provisions of the ordinance to enter the car at the terminus at Forty-First and Market streets, and remain therein until the car made its circuit and returned practically to its starting point. The court did not decide the precise point here under consideration, but held that the plaintiff was properly ejected, and reversed the court below, which had held the plaintiff's view of the case. In Church v. Ohio, M. & St. P. R. Co., 60 N. W. 854, 6 S. D. 235, 26 L. R. A. 616, the Supreme Court on appeal held that it was a reasonable regulation for a company, operating a direct, indirect, and circuitous lines of roads between two points, to require that through passengers traveling upon a simple contract to carry them from one point to another should go by the most direct route. See, also, 6 Cyc. 581; 26 Am. & Eng. Ency. of Law, 184.
This rule is so in accord with proper ideals of justice that it appeals at once to the judicial mind, and, when we recollect the obligation of the individual to deal in good faith with those acting under the law, it becomes plain that the plaintiff in this action has no right to recover ; for the defendant has not been guilty of a statutory wrong against which the remedy was directed. While the refusal of a transfer is the overt act upon which the cause of action depends, it is the violation of the duty to the public which the law seeks to reach, and if there is no violation of that duty then the defendant had a right to refuse the transfer. The duty of the corporation is to carry, not beyond and back to the point by a circuitous route, but "between any two points on the railroads or portions thereof embraced in such contract any passenger desiring to make one continuous trip between such points," not for the gratification or whim of the idle or curious person, but "to the end that the public convenience may be promoted by the operation of the roads embraced in such contract, substantially as a single railroad with a single rate of fare." The law contemplates that a passenger upon a street railroad, like a passenger upon any ordinary railroad, wants to go somewhere as a practical matter—that he has a purpose in going to some given place. The powers given to railroad corporations and the duties which they assume are predicated upon transportation facilities as practical utilities, and when in section 104 of the railroad law it was provided that a passenger "desiring to make one continuous trip between such points" should be permitted to do so for a single fare, it was understood that the passenger desired to make use of the means of transportation afforded under reasonable rules and regulations to accomplish this purpose in a practical way. A trip is defined by the Century Dictionary, in its relation to transportation, to be the "performance of service one way over a route, the performance of service both ways being a round trip"; and under the scheme of transfers provided for by the defendant a person desiring to make a continuous trip—a trip one way—is provided an entirely practical and efficient means of reaching any part of the city of New York for a single fare of five cents, and this is a full compliance with the purposes sought to be accomplished by section 104 of the railroad law. The defendant, while fulfilling its duty under the statute, cannot be guilty of such a refusal of a transfer as to entail the penalty prescribed.
The determination appealed from should be reversed, and the judgment of the trial court affirmed, with costs in all courts.
PATTERSON, P. J., and HOUGHTON, J., concur.