Court Opinion

ID: 6734893
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2022-07-20 23:17:31.230722+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T16:01:44.304555
License: Public Domain

Corliss, C. J.
It is difficult to discover from the complaint or the plaintiff’s brief the precise legal theory on which she seeks to sustain this action. Our first impression was against the sufficiency of the complaint, which has been thus far successfully attacked by demurrer. But on a more careful analysis of-its averments and after eliminating therefrom all immaterial allegations which tend only to obscure the question of liability, we are convinced that the plaintiff has disclosed a state of facts which establish such a breach of duty on the part of the defendant as renders it responsible to her in damages. The general theory of the action is that defendant’s violation of its duty to plaintiff’s husband was the cause of his death, and that, therefore, it is bound, under sections 5974-5976 Rev. Codes, to make good to her the damage she has thereb)' suffered.
As the question arises on demurrer, we are concerned with nothing but the averments of the plaintiff’s pleading. Do they state a cause of action? Stripped of all unnecessary verbiage, they are, in substance, as follows: That plaintiff is the widow of Jacob C. Haug; that he left, him surviving, the plaintiff and four minor children, who live with plaintiff; that defendant is a railroad corporation ; that on the 2nd day of February, 1895, defendant received plaintiff’s husband as a passenger for transportation from Hillsboro to Alton station, in this state; that it negligently carried him by his point of destination; that he was in an imbecile condition from drink, and was helplessly intoxicated, to the knowledge of the defendant and its employes; that on reaching the station next south of Alton, i. e. the village of Kelso, the defendant put him off its train, against his wishes; that it was then late in the night, and was stormy and dangerously cold; that at this village there were no proper accommodations for travelers except defendant’s depot; that shortly after plaintiff had entered such depot, and while he was quietly waiting for the next train to take him back to Alton, to the knowledge of defendant’s agent, and while he was still in such imbecile condition from drink, and helplessly drunk, to the knowledge of such agent, such agent wantonly ejected him from the depot, and drove him out into the night; that it was dangerously and bitterly cold and stormy; that to compel a person, and especially one in his condition, to leave the waiting room, was inhuman, and was to evidently and apparently endanger his life; that plaintiff, so denied all shelter, was forced to and did attempt to walk back towards Hillsboro, the only place where he could find shelter, and *25that after hours of walking he finally succumbed to the cold, and died from exposure.
If these facts do not create a liability, it must be because the law deems human life cheap. In the forum of conscience, any human being would be instantly condemned who should treat a helpless drunkard as the deceased was treated by the defendant. The acts of defendant are none the less indefensible because they were performed, as all corporate acts must be performed, by agents. Does, then, the law lag so far behind ethics that conduct like this, which shocks the moral sense, is nevertheless sanctioned by legal principles? We are gratified to find that this question can be answered in the negative. The ground' of liability in this case is the disregard by defendant of human life while in the performance of a legal right. When defendant negligently carried plaintiff past the station to which he was’ bound, it became liable to him for breach of its contract, and was under obligations to return him to that place without charge. But there is no connection between this negligent act and the death which thereafter resulted. Such act was not the proximate cause of his death. Had defendant carried him to a place of safety, and had he died from cold because of his intoxicated condition, no liability would have existed. Nor do we wish to be understood as holding that defendant was obliged to carry him without pay to any point to which he might express a desire to be transported. A traveler who buys a ticket at St. Paul for Minneapolis cannot, when negligently borne beyond his destination, demand that he shall be given a free ride to the Pacific coast. The railroad company has rendered itself liable for its breach of contract, but it has not incurred the obligation to carry the passenger any further than it would be obliged to carry any other passenger who has no ticket and refuses to pay his fare. The duty to carry the traveler, who has been taken past his station through the negligence of the carrier, to a place where his life will not be imperiled, may perhaps be greater than the duty to a willful trespasser, who is conducting himself with violence on the train. But in a general sense, his right to continued transportation is no greater. He must either pay or leave the train when a point has been reached where he will not be exposed to great hazard. Plaintiff in this case cannot complain of the mere fact of the ejection of her husband from the train at Kelso. It is because of the peculiar circumstances surrounding that act, and which made it one necessarily dangerous to human life, when considered in the light of the subsequent conduct of defendant in forcibly removing him from its depot, that the plaintiff may justly hold defendant responsible for the terrible consequences which ensued. To have put him off the train where there were hotel accommodations would have been justifiable, because the defendant was not bound to carry him until he had become sober. Had he, after being ejected at such a place, been run over and killed in the street, or been frozen to death because *26of his state of intoxication, defendant could not be held responsible. But no one would contend that it could put him off from the train while in motion. And yet why is this so ? The underlying principle applicable in such a case is that a railroad company must not, even when exercising the lawful right of removal, so act as to jeopardize human life. On the same principle, it could not set the passenger out in the midst of a storm on a cold night on the prairie or at a flag station. Neither would the law sanction its act in ejecting him under such circumstances at a station where there were no accommodations for travelers, and where the depot was closed. The defendant in this case owed to plaintiff’s husband the duty of carrying him to a point where he, helpless from drink, would not be shelterless against the pitiless fury of a storm, on a bitterly cold night. Whether he was left on the lonely prairie between stations, or at a flag station where there was no depot, or at a village where he could not find shelter except at defendant’s depot, which was closed to him or shelter in which was denied to him, the fact would in all the cases be the same, — that it had placed him, a man helplessly intoxicated, to its knowledge, and whom it had negligently carried beyond his destination, in a position from which death or great bodily injury was almost certain to result. Thp defendant could not expect that a stranger in a place, much less one in such a state of intoxication, would be permitted to enter a private house. It was chargeable with knowledge that his condition was such that he might not even have sufficient control of his faculties to make an effort to do so. It was therefore bound when, despite his protests, it removed him at Kelso, to see to it that the station agent was apprised of the facts, and directed to allow him shelter in its depot until he could be carried back to the place where the defendant should, in the exercise of reasonable care, have originally left him. We do not mean to intimate that it is incumbent upon a railroad company to keep its passenger stations open at all hours of the day and night. And if, under ordinary circumstances, the depot building is closed to the public except when it is necessary it should be open to accommodate the public, no one has any ground for complaint. Assuming that defendant has a right to close its depot as against the general public at the time plaintiff’s husband was ejected therefrom, and assuming, further (but the complaint leaves this point in doubt), that what the defendant’s agent did in removing her husband was only incidental to the act of closing the depot for the night, yet as against him the defendant had no right to close the depot. When its train reached Kelso with this helpless man on board, because of its own carelessness, it was bound, in view of the climatic conditions and the nonexistence of shelter at that point except in its own depot, to decide whether it would leave him there, in a place of safety, or carry him further, to another place of safety, and, when once it determined to put him off at that point, there sprung up the obligation not to take from him the only shelter the *27place afforded. If this shelter was to be denied him, then it was inhuman to drop him at that station at all. It would be in no respect different from leaving him where the depot was already closed, or where there was no depot at all, or at a flag station, or between stations upon a shelterless plain. The wrongful act of the defendant would be in not guarding against the possibility that the station agent, ignorant of the facts, might close the depot, and thrust the unfortunate man, in his helpless condition, out into the dangerous storm. Defendant cannot escape liability because the conductor, without any thought of the dangers of the position of this helpless man, failed to apprise the' station agent that the defendant, having carried Him by his station, was bound to see that he was not placed in a situation of peril, and that, therefore, he (the agent) must give him shelter in the station. His - intoxication was not the proximate cause of his death. It was, it is true, the cause of the defendant being required to exercise greater precaution as to the place of his removal from the train than if he had been sober. The man who voluntarily incapacitates himself by drink is not on this account an outlaw. The law deems his life as precious as that of an Emerson. When the carrier discovers that one helpless from intoxication is upon its train without right, it must, in selecting a safe place to put him off, have regard to his -actual condition, physical and mental, without any reference to his responsibility for such condition. The law declares to the carrier that it shall not expose him to .great peril even in exercising it undoubted right to eject him; and, in declaring whether he will be subjected to peril, not only must climatic conditions, the propinquity of shelter, and other matters be taken into account, but also the actual state of his mind and bodily health and strength, if known to the agent - of the carrier. Though the intoxication of the deceased did cast upon the defendant greater precaution in seeing to it that his life was not imperiled, yet it was not the cause of his death. That cause was the wanton act of the defendant’s agent in unnecessarily exposing him, in a state of helpless intoxication, to the cold and storm of a bitter wintry night. The defendant has not even the excuse that it had no chance to prevent his taking passage on its train in this drunken state, for it is averred that his helpless and imbecile condition was known to the company at the time it accepted him as a passenger. There is ample authority for our decision that the facts alleged disclose liability.
In Railroad Co. v. Johnson (Ala.) 19 South. Rep. 51, it appeared that plaintiff’s intestate, who was a passenger on one of its. night trains, was very drunk, and refused to pay his fare. Thereupon he was ejected in a cut of the road where there was no escape, except up or down the track, along the sides of which there was room for a person to walk. The night was dark, and it was raining. At the south end there were cattle guards, which could be passed only by walking on the track. Here he was struck, and killed by a train *28It was held that the company was liable. The Court said: “If a passenger on a train is intoxicated to a degree to render him unconscious of danger, or he does not possess the power of locomotion, and is put off the train by'a conductor on account of his misconduct, and the place where he is put off and left is dangerous to one in his condition, and these facts are known to the conductor, he would be guilty of reckless and wanton negligence, rendering the company in whose employment he is liable for damages resulting from his negligence, although the person ejected and injured might have been legally ejected, in a proper manner and at a proper place. Tanner v. Railroad Co., 60 Ala. 621; Isbell v. Railroad Co., 27 Conn. 393: Kerwhaker v. Railroad Co., 3 Ohio St. 172; Railroad Co., v. Sullivan, 81 Ky. 624, 50 Am. Rep. 186; Johnson v. Railroad Co., 58 Iowa 348, 12 N. W. Rep. 329; Kline v. Railroad Co., 37 Cal. 400; 3 Wood Ry. Law, § § 363, 364; Shear & R. Neg. § 493; 2 Am. & Eng. Enc. Law 748.” Again, the Court said: “It is opposed to authority and reason, and the common instincts of humanity, to allow, because a passenger is intoxicated, whether to a greater or lesser degree, and misbehaves in a manner authorizing the conductor to expel him from the train, that such explusion may be made without the exercise of due care for the safety of the passenger, having reference to time, place, and surroundings. If expelled without the exercise of such reasonable care for his life and limb, and he is injured in consequence, the company will be liable, notwithstanding the fact if the passenger had not been drunk he would not has misbehaved, and if he had not misbehaved he would not have been expelled and injured. The right to make reparation rests upon the moral obligation resting upon every one so to exercise his own rights as not to injure another-.. As was well expressed in Isbell v. Railroad Co., supra: ‘A remote fault in one party does not, of course, dispense with care in the other. It may even make it more necessary and important, if thereby a calamitous injury can be avoided, or an unavoidable calamity essentially mitigated. Common' justice and common humanity, to say nothing of law, demand this; and it is no answer for the neglect of it to say that the complainant was first in the wrong, since inattention and accidents are to a greater or less extent incidental to human affairs. Preventive remedies must therefore always-be proportioned to the case in its peculiar circumstances, to the imminency of the danger, the evil to be avoided, and the means at hand for avoiding it/ ” When this case was before the Court on a former appeal (16 South. Rep. 75) the Court said: “There is another principle of law to be observed, which requires of all persons, in the exercise of a right or the performance of duty, that it be done with reasonable regard to the preservation of life, and prevention of great bodily harm, or the infliction of unnecessary injuries to others, and they will be held responsible for the manner in which the right is exercised or duty performed. It is an exceptional case where the law does not sub*29ordinate personal rights to the preservation of life. A conductor has the right, under proper circumstances, to eject a.passenger from a car; but he would not be justified in exercising this right while the car was at a high rate of speed, or when upon a high trestle, nor would he be justified in putting off a person who was blind or deaf, knowing his infirmity, except at a safe place. Upon like principles, the law would not justify a conductor in putting off a passenger at a time and place, and under conditions and circumstances, which would expose him unnecessarily to great peril of life or bodily harm; and this, too, whether the danger arose from the natural infirmity of the person or was self-imposed. If the conductor did not know of the infirmity of the person and the peril attending, the ejection, there would be no liability arising from the exercise of the right and performance of the duty. It is the fact of notice or knowledge of the danger on the part of the conductor, under such circumstances, that constitutes the act culpable or willfully wrong. If the deceased was intoxicated to the degree that he was unconscious of danger, — could not grasp his-position and surroundings, and his duty to avoid danger from passing trains, — or did not possess the power of locomotion, and the place where he was put off and left was dangerous to one in his condition, and these facts were known to the conductor, the conductor would be guilty of such negligence as to render the defendant liable for damages resulting from such misconduct, although the deceased may have been a trespasser on the train, and might have been legally ejected, in a proper manner and at a proper place.”
In Railroad Co. v. Sullivan, 81 Ky. 624, 50 Am. Rep. 186, it was held that the defendant was liable when it expelled from its cars, because he refused to pay his fare, a passenger who was helplessly drunk, the defendant knowing of his condition, he being expelled, not at a station, but in the snow. As a consequence of this expulsion at such a place he was severely frozen, and tfie defendant was held liable therefor.
In Railroad Co. v. Valleley, 32 Ohio St. 345, the Court said: “It might, perhaps, as far as this case is concerned, be conceded that, if a man were so intoxicated as to be without reason, sense, 01-intelligence, it would be unlawful, as it would be inhuman, to expel him from cars at night, where” he would be just as likely as not to lie down upon the rails and go to sleep. We may concede further, that to put off a drunken man, during a bitterly cold night, in the woods, far from any house, when the probabilities were that he would freeze to death before help could reach him, would be as indefensible in law as it would be wicked and cruel in fact. And, further, to put a man off in a dark night, upon a high railroad bridge, or upon the brink of a precipice, where the first step would be destruction, this could find no justification in law. All this might possibly be.”
In Railroad Co. v. Weber, 33 Kan. 543, 6 Pac. 877, the Court *30say, at page 554, 33 Kan., and page 884, 6 Pac. Rep.: “The duty of the railroad company, however, with respect to Weber, did not end with his removal from the train. Pie was unconscious, and unable to take care of himself. The company could not leave him upon the platform helpless, exposed, and without care or attention. It was its duty to exercise reasonable care and diligence to make temporary provision for his- protection and comfort. As was said by the learned Court who tried the case: ‘Of course, the carrier is not required to keep hospitals or nurses for sick or insane passengers, but, when a passenger is found by the carrier to be in such a helpless condition, it is the duty of the carrier to exercise the reasonable and necessary offices of humanity towards him until some suitable provision may be made.’ ”
In Conolly v. Railroad Co., 41 La. Ann. 57, 5 South. Rep. 259, and 6 South. Rep. 526, the Court said: “But none of those cases hold that this right of exclusion can be exercised inhumanly, or without due care and provision for the safety and well being of. the ejected passenger. On the contrary, the duty of exercising such care and provision is universally recognized.”
In Railroad Co. v. Pitzer, 109 Ind. 179, 6 N. E. Rep. 310, and 10 N. E. Rep. 70, the Court, referring to some of the cases already cited, said: “These are cases — extreme ones, it may be — illustrating the doctrine that regard must be had to the helpless condition of one who enters a railroad train, and that those in charge of the train must do no act which is cruel or inhuman. Granting that these cases are extreme ones, still the general doctrine which they assert is undeniably a sound one, for through all the cases runs the principle that what humanity requires must be done by those who act with knowledge of another’s helplessness.”
In Roseman v. Railroad Co. (N. C.) 16 S. E. Rep. 768, the Court said: “But where the power expressly given by law is exercised in such a manner as to willfully and wantonly expose the ejected person to danger of life or limb, the company is still liable for injury or death resulting- from the expulsion. Cases falling within this last exception to the general rule, and not intended to be included under the statute, arise where the persons ejected are manifestly too infirm to travel, or too much intoxicated to be trusted to find the way to the nearest house or station. 3 Wood Ry. Law, § 362; 2 Shear & R. Neg. § 493; Railroad Co. v. Wright, 68 Ind. 586.”
In Brown v. Railroad Co., 51 Iowa, 235, 1 N. W. Rep. 487, the Court said: “In exercising- the right of ejection, reasonable and ordinary care should he employed. In determining whether such care has been exercised all the circumstances should be considered as the physical condition of the person ejected; the time, whether in daylight or late at night; the condition of the country, whether thickly or sparsely settled; the place of the ejection, whether near to or remote from dwellings of any character, including stations; the character of the weather, whether pleasant or inclement, etc. The rules of law, as well as the dictates of humanity, require that *31the ejection shall occur at such place, and be prosecuted in such manner, as not unreasonably to expose the party to danger.”
November 12, 1898.
Judge Elliott says, in his work on Railroads (section 1637) : “If he is so intoxicated or so young or feeble as not to be able to take care of himself or look out for his own safety, the company should exercise reasonable care to see to it that he is not expelled and abandoned in such a place, and under such circumstances, that he will be exposed to unnecessary peril.”.
All the cases which recognize the right of the carrier to eject the passenger who has no ticket, and refuses to pay his fare, assert that this right must be exercised in such a manner as not to imperil the life of the passenger, or subject him to danger of bodily injury. See, as supporting this principle, the following decisions, which are more or less in point: Railroad Co. v. Glass, 60 Ga. 441; Railroad Co. v. Gilbert, 64 Tex. 536; Railroad Co. v. Rosenzweig, 113 Pa. St. 519, 6 Atl. Rep. 545; Ham v. Canal Co., 155 Pa. St. 548, 26 Atl. Rep. 757; Rudy v. Railroad Co., 8 Utah 165, 30 Pac. Rep. 366; Gill v. Railroad Co., 37 Hun. 107; Railroad Co. v. Skillman, 39 Ohio St. 444; Railroad Co. v. McDonald, 2 Willson, Civ. Cas. Ct. App. 144; Hall v. Railroad Co., 28 S. C. 261, 5 S. E. Rep. 623; Wyman v. Railroad Co., 34 Minn. 210, 25 N. W. Rep. 349. See, also, Weymire v. Wolfe, 52 Iowa 533, 3 N. W. Rep. 541; Isbell v. Railroad Co., 27 Conn. 393.
The complaint shows with sufficient clearness that the death which resulted was proximately caused by the defendant’s wrongful act. The order sustaining the demurrer is reversed. All’concur.