Court Opinion

ID: 9670488
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 03:21:33.027049+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:16:05.022311
License: Public Domain

On Rehearing
LAWSON, Justice
(dissenting).
The foregoing opinion prepared in response to an application for rehearing was brought to the full court, although the writer and Justices STAKELY and MERRILL did not participate in the consideration of the opinion delivered on original submission.
I find myself unable to agree with the foregoing opinion in so far as it holds that *120Count B is in contract, although I readily concede that the question as to whether the count is in contract or in tort is a close one.
In Wilkinson v. Moseley, 18 Ala. 288, quoted in Mobile Life Ins. Co. v. Randall, 74 Ala. 170, Mr. Justice Parsons, writing for the court, said:
“Perhaps the best criterion is this: if the cause of action, as stated in the declaration, arises from a breach of promise, the action is ex contractu; but if the cause of action arises from a breach of duty growing out of the contract, it is in form ex delicto, and case.”
It was necessary to aver the contract in Count B, since a tort by the carrier cannot be.committed upon the passenger as such unless the carrier-passenger relationship is created by contract, express or implied. Southern Ry. Co. v. Bunnell, 138 Ala. 247, 36 So. 380.
There is no averment in Count B of an express contract. In fact, it is alleged therein that the defendant “impliedly contracted with the plaintiff.” The courts have been inclined to consider complaints of this character (against common carriers) as founded in tort unless a special contract very clearly appears to be made the gravamen or object of the complaint. New Orleans, Jackson & Great Northern R. Co. v. Hurst, 36 Miss. 660; Jacksonville St. Ry. Co. v. Chappell, 22 Fla. 616, 1 So. 10; Ft. Smith & W. R. Co. v. Ford, 34 Okl. 575, 126 P. 745, 41 L.R.A.,N.S., 745.
Construing the averments of Count B as a whole, T am of the opinion that the wrong or injury complained of was that the plaintiff, after acquiring by implied contract the right to travel on defendant’s, bus to a.cértain point and there to be afford-’ ed a reasonable opporunity to alight in safety, was negligently carried beyond that point by the defendant and “negligently required or negligently permitted to disembark at an unsafe ipl-a’ce in violation of defendant’s public duty.”
In other words, I am of the opinion that the cause of action stated in Count B does not arise out of a breach of promise but from a breach of duty growing out of the contract and that the averments as to the implied contract should be considered as mere matters of inducement in which an action in case arises for a breach of duty to carry the plaintiff as a passenger. Southern Ry. Co. v. Bunnell, supra; Western Union Tel. Co. v. Krichbaum, 133 Ala. 535, 31 So. 607; Western Union Tel. Co. v. Waters, 139 Ala. 652, 36 So. 773; Western Union Tel. Co. v. Favish, 196 Ala. 4, 71 So. 183.
MERRILL, J., concurs in the foregoing views.