Court Opinion

ID: 9610407
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 03:41:05.819509+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:46:30.657597
License: Public Domain

Gardner, P. J.,
dissenting. Counsel for the plaintiff argues that the plaintiff was a passenger to whom the defendant owed the duty to exercise extraordinary care and diligence. In support of this theory counsel cites Central R. & Bkg. Co. v. Perry, 58 Ga. 461, wherein the Supreme Court said: “One who has a railroad ticket and is present to take the train at the ordinary point of departure, is a passenger, though he has not entered the cars. In duties toward him, directly involving his safety, the company is bound to extraordinary diligence, and in those touching his convenience or accommodation, to ordinary diligence.” (Italics ours). Counsel argues that the plaintiff had paid for a ticket and was at the ordinary point of departure of the train and that therefore the defendant owed extreme care and diligence to the plaintiff. Counsel submits that the first point to be established is the negligence of the defendant and that upon establishing that fact counsel would submit the contentions as to why the plaintiff could not have avoided the negligence of the defendant, by the exercise of ordinary care. Counsel for the plaintiff cites Atlanta Terminal Co. v. Alexander, 38 Ga. App. 280 (3) (143 S. E. 905). In that *612case the court held that one who obtains a railroad ticket, and presents himself at the usual point of departure of trains is a passenger, and as .such: “He is entitled to have the railroad company exercise extraordinary care for his safety, and to exercise ordinary diligence in matters involving merely his convenience or accommodation.” (Italics ours). Counsel for the plaintiff cites and relies on Coursey v. Southern Ry. Co., 113 Ga. 297 (38 S. E. 866), to sustain the position that the question as to whether or not a person is in fact an agent of a defendant is for the jury to determine. It is true that that case, under its facts, so held. However, as far back as 1865 the Supreme Court in Wright v. Ga. R. & Bkg. Co., 34 Ga. 330 (3), held that corporate bodies, especially railroad companies, have hundreds of employees daily, in various service, with divisions of labor and duty, and that such companies shall not be liable for damages upon the loose or casual sayings of every person who may be in their employment. In Florida Central &c. R. Co. v. Cain, 100 Ga. 472 (28 S. E. 381), cited by counsel for the plaintiff, it is held that if a conductor promises to give a passenger time to get on a train, it is the conductor’s duty to see that the passenger gets on the train safely or at least to wait a reasonable time after giving the signal to move the train. In that case there was no question of the scope of the authority of the conductor.
Counsel for the plaintiff cites Watts v. Colonial Stages Co., 45 Ga. App. 115 (163 S. E. 523). In that case the agent (and no question of agency or scope of authority was before the court in that case) directed a passenger into a restroom which was a man trap and which fact should have been known to the agent, and bus driver. In the instant case the plaintiff was not standing where he had been directed to stand but on the contrary was running along the railroad tracks, by the side of the moving train. There was no apparent connection between the act of the alleged agent of the defendant and the agency. See Bates v. Southern Ry. Co., 52 Ga. App. 576 (183 S. E. 819). In Colonial Stores v. Sasser, 79 Ga. App. 604 (54 S. E. 2d 719), this court said: “In determining the liability of the master for the negligent or willful acts of a servant, the test of liability is, not whether the act was done during the existence of the employment, but whether it was done1 within the scope of the actual transaction of the master’s business for accomplishing the ends of his employment.”
*613Counsel for the plaintiff cite Southern Railway Co. v. Crabb, 10 Ga. App. 659 (3) (73 S. E. 859), wherein this court said: “The duty of extraordinary diligence for the safety of passengers, which rests upon a carrier in behalf of a passenger who has purchased a ticket and is seeking to enter the train for the purpose of being transported to his destination, and whether extraordinary diligence requires that a passenger be assisted in entering a train, may be dependent upon the circumstances and conditions surrounding the passenger, the location of the tracks, the height of the steps or platform, and other facts of the particular case. If, in the exercise of extraordinary care, it should be necessary for the safety of a particular passenger, in an emergency, that the passenger be assisted in mounting the steps, or otherwise aided, in entering the train, then it would become the duty of the carrier to assist the passenger.” The facts in the instant case do not indicate that an emergency existed such as to require the agent of the railway company to anticipate an injury to the plaintiff and hence be liable for the injury sustained by the plaintiff. On the contrary it seems to me that the voluntary act of the plaintiff was a rash, imprudent and dangerous undertaking. See Horne v. Neill, 70 Ga. App. 602, 609 (29 S. E. 2d 275), wherein it is said: “One who voluntarily attempts a rash, imprudent and dangerous undertaking is to be presumed to have assumed the risk incidental thereto, and cannot afterwards complain if he is injured.” In Hendrix v. Vale Royal Mfg. Co., 134 Ga. 712 (1) (68 S. E. 483), the Supreme Court said: “In the absence of anything to the contrary, every adult is presumed to possess such ordinary intelligence, judgment, and discretion as will enable him to appreciate obvious danger.” In Southern Railway Co. v. Hogan, 131 Ga. 157 (1) (62 S. E. 64), the Supreme Court said, “One who knowingly and voluntarily takes a risk of injury to his person and property, the danger of which is so obvious that the act of taking such risk, in and of itself, amounts to a failure to exercise ordinary care and diligence for his own safety and that of his property, can not hold another liable for damages from injuries thus occasioned.” See Briscoe v. Southern Ry. Co., 103 Ga. 224 (28 S. E. 638); and Simmons v. Seaboard Air-Line Ry., 120 Ga. 225 (47 S. E. 570, 1 Ann. Cas. 777). Counsel for both sides have cited and quoted cases involving boarding and/or alighting from *614a moving train. We will not analyze these cases because, in the instant case the plaintiff was neither boarding nor alighting from a moving train. He was running after and alongside a moving train preliminary to attempting to board it.
It is my opinion that the alleged negligence of the defendant was not the proximate cause of the injury to the plaintiff. The danger was known to the plaintiff or by the exercise of reasonable care should have been known to him. The plaintiff, in the absence of allegations to the contrary, was assumed to be physically and mentally capable of boarding a train without assistance, even though inexperienced. The plaintiff moved from a perfectly safe place to an unsafe place and was thereby injured. He therefore assumed the risk and failed tu exercise ordinary care for his own safety. I think the trial court erred in overruling the demurrers to the petition.