Court Opinion

ID: 8008285
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2022-09-09 01:55:27.437327+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T16:35:58.209839
License: Public Domain

On Re-hearing.

Henby, C. J.
We adhere to the opinion heretofore delivered in this cause. It is pertinently asked if two persons sitting on the same seat in a car are injured in a ' railroad accident, can it be that one must look to one company and his companion to a different company for redress? Why not? In the case at bar the defendant company did not undertake to carry passengers from St. Louis or Pacific to points between those stations. It received no part of the money paid to the Missouri Pacific Railway Company by such passengers. The train was not under its control or management, but under that of the Missouri Pacific. If the general manager of the *434defendant had ordered conductor of the train in question not to receive such passengers, and one had entered the car, having a ticket from the Missouri Pacific Company, and the conductor should have been in the act of expelling him from the train, could he have disobeyed an order from the manager of the Missouri Pacific to let the passenger remain? Was not the order from the latter to receive and carry such passengers, one which he was bound to obey ? A part of the rolling stock of the train was owned by the defendant. The locomotive was owned by the Missouri Pacific, which also owned the road. The train men, though in the permanent employment of the defendant, were, while moving the train from St. Louis to Pacific, under the exclusive control and management of the Missouri Pacific, and the engineer and fireman were in the permanent employment of the latter company. Not an order could the defendant company have given as to the running of that train between St. Louis and Pacific. Not a passenger was received by defendant company to be transported between those points The deceased had purchased his ticket of the Missouri Pacific Railway Company.
There were no contractual relations between him and the defendant. The conductor would have subjected the Missouri Pacific to a suit for damages had he ejected the passenger from the train, and would himself have been liable to that company for any damages recovered by the passenger against the Missouri Pacific for such ejection. Could he have sued the St. Louis & San Francisco Company for such ejection? That company had not undertaken to carry him. It was not doing any such business between St. Louis and Pacific, and clearly he would have had no cause of action against the defendant, but must have sought redress from the Missouri Pacific. Whether to a through passenger who had procured a passage from the defendant company, the latter would have been liable for any injury sustained between St. Louis and Pacific in consequence of the negligence of those operating the *435train, is not a question in this cause, and it is proper to abstain from deciding that question until it is properly before us. Upon what principle the St. Louis & San Francisco Company can be held liable in this case I cannot conceive. It certainly would be an anomaly to hold •one responsible for the acts of another, over whom he had no control. Such a principle obtains in no civil action between individuals, and no reason can be assigned why it should apply in suits against corporations.
On a critical examination of the cases relied upon to sustain this action it will be found, in such of them as are correctly decided, that there is so marked a distinction between them and this as makes them wholly inapplicable. In every one of them it will be found that the party held liable had some control over the negligent servants in the very work they were engaged in performing.
The judgment is affirmed.
Norton and Black, JJ., dissent.