Northern Central Co. v. Scholl

Le Grand, C. J., delivered the opinion of this court. This suit was brought by the intestate of the appellee Against the appellant, to recover the value of a slave for life, belonging to said intestate, and lost to him, by being transported in the' cars over the railway of the appellant. The declaration contains two counts; the first of which alleges, ³⁴⁷ that the appellant transported said slave in its cars, whereby he was enabled to escape, and did escape, and was wholly lost to the plaintiff; the second count was in trover. The plea was, not guilty, on which issue was joined.

It was agreed that all errors in pleading should be released; and, also, that all statutes of Maryland and of Pennsylvania might be read from the printed statutes of those States. Proof was given, at the trial, of the ownership and value of the slave, and that the slave was last seen at the home of his master, in Frederick county, Maryland, on the evening of Whitsunday of 1855; and that he was next seen on Whitmonday, in Hanover, Pennsylvania, by a Mr. Epply, in company with two other slaves, who had also run away, at the same time, from the same neighborhood in Frederick county. At the time Mr. Epply saw them, all three slaves were in the ticket office of the Hanover Branch Railroad; and one of the other slaves had applied for, and had obtained, a ticket for Little York, Pa. The agent of the railroad then inquired of the slave to whom he had sold a ticket, whether the others wanted tickets also.

Being answered in the affirmative, the agent proceeded to prepare for the last mentioned slaves, two tickets, and whilst so employed, Mr. Epply asked him, “How he came to give those boys tickets, not knowing whether they had permits, or were free or slaves?” He replid, “That it was not his business to enquire,” and added, “that if a black man called for a ticket, and paid for it, he had as good a right to a seat in the first class cars as any other man.” Epply told the agent that the boys were runaways and that he wanted to arrest them. It was after this notice, given by Epply, — according to his testimony, — that the ticket was given to the slave of the intestate of the appellee. Mr. Lieb, the agent, testifies the ticket was sold before the notice was given to him. The ticket purchased by the slave was a through ticket to York, by which he was entitled to travel over the appellant’s road.

There is no direct evidence how far the slave travelled on either the Hanover or the appellant’s road; he was never heard of after the starting of the cars from Hanover. Evidence was given of articles of agree ³⁴⁸ ment entered into on the 12th day of April 1855, between the Northern Central Railroad Company and the Hanover Branch Railroad Company. By the third article of the agreement, the Northern Central Company was to provide an agent, whose duty should be, “to forward and deliver all tonnage at Hanover, to receive and collect the freight thereon, to sell all passenger tickets, and to receive the revenue therefrom accruing from the joint operations of the two companies.” The plaintiff offered one prayer, which was refused; and the defendant nine prayers, of which, the first, third, sixth, seventh and eighth were granted, and the second, fourth, fifth and ninth were rejected. ' When the instructions which were given to the jury at the request of the defendant are duly considered, to entitle it to a reversal of the judgment rendered against it, one of two proposition must be made out to the satisfaction of this court, Either, that as the sale of the ticket, and-the transportation of the slave, took place within the limits of the State of Pennsylvania, and without those of the State of Maryland, there can be no recovery for the escape of the slave, because slavery is not recognized in Pennsylvania; or, that the jurisdiction of the alleged tort is vested, by the Act of Congress of 1,850, chapter 60, exclusively in the District Court of the United States for Pennsylvania, within whose jurisdiction the said alleged tort was committed. All the other propositions, contended for by the appellant, it had the benefit of, in the directions given by the court.

Indeed, instructions were given to the jury which, in our opinion, were not authorized by the law of the case. In granting the sixth prayer of the defendant, the court gave it every possible advantage; it told the jury if they were of the opinion the slave had escaped from his master into Pennsylvania, and at the time of the sale of the ticket to, and the transportation of, the slave, there was no fact within, the knowledge, of the defendant, or its agent, to warrant the presumption that the negro was a slave but his color, then the plaintiff could not, recover. This direction gave it every advantage to be desired from want of knowledge on the part ³⁴⁹ of the defendant and its agent, and from the laws of Pennsylvania, which do not recognize slavery in negroes. The second prayer of the defendant was properly rejected for the reason, if for none other, that it does not give a proper construction to the articles of agreement between the Hanover road and the defendant.

It makes the agent, “as to all sales of through tickets made by him, the agent of the Hanover Company, so far as said tickets authorized a passage over the road and in the cars of said Hanover Company.” The articles of agreement make no such partition of the agency; all that it provided for, is, the partition of the proceeds of sale, <fcc., between the companies. The appointment of the agent is with the defendant, and it alone must be held responsible for the manner in which its appointee discharges his duty. The fourth prayer was also properly rejected; it, in point of fact, denied the sufficienc)7' of the information derived from Mr. Epply, to put the agent on the inquiry whether or not the negro was a slave. If the jury believed the testimony of Epply, nothing, except the title papers to the negro, could have been more specific and positive than were his declarations to the agent, or better calculated