Philadelphia, Baltimore & Washington Railroad v. Green

Burke, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. This is an action for assault and battery and .false arrest and imprisonment brought by Henry M. Green against the Philadelphia, Baltimore and Washington Railroad Company. The suit was instituted in the Circuit Court for Cecil County, and was removed to the Circuit Court for Kent County. It was tried in that Court upon a declaration which contained two counts.

The first count charged that the defendant is a corporation owning and operating a railroad for the carriage of passengers for hire between certain points in this State, and for the accommodation of persons intending to become passengers on its road it had provided a waiting room near its tracks in the City of Havre de Grace; that the plaintiff entered said waiting room on the 5th of March, 1907, for the purpose of taking passage on one of the defendant’s trains, and that while in “said waiting room for the purpose aforesaid one of the defendant’s agents, officers or employees then ³⁸ and there in charge of said waiting room then and there with force and arms did violently assault and unlawfully and maliciously did cast and throw the plaintiff upon the floor of said waiting room, and did then and there heat, wound and ill-treat the plaintiff, etc.” The other count, which is called in the record an additional count and which will he so designated in this opinion, after setting forth introductory averments similar to those stated in the first count, charged that while the plaintiff was in the waiting room of the defendant on the night of March 5, 1907, for the purpose of taking passage on one of the defendant’s trains to Elkton, Maryland, “an officer or agent of the said defendant and in its employ, violently assaulted the plaintiff and falsely arrested and imprisoned the plaintiff in the jail of the City of Havre de Grace aforesaid, in consequence whereof the said plaintiff suffered great distress of mind and severe bodily harm and injury and his reputation in the community where he lives has been greatly injured thereby.” The defendant demurred to each of these counts. The Court overruled the demurrers and issue was joined upon the defendant’s plea of not guilty, and the case proceeded to trial, which resulted in a verdict and judgment in favor of the plaintiff for one thousand dollars. The defendant has brought this appeal. The record contains four bills of exception reserved by the defendant during the course of the trial.

Two of these relate to the admission of evidence; one to the action of the Court in striking out certain testimony, and one to the ruling of the Court upon the prayers and certain special exceptions submitted at the close of the whole testimony. The record contains more than five hundred pages of testimony, and upon the vital questions of fact involved is very conflicting. We are not required to enter upon a minute examination and analysis of this irreconcilable testimony for the purpose of discovering the real facts of the occurrence to which it relates, or of deciding upon which side is found the preponderance of the proof. It was exclusively within the ³⁹ province of the jury to determine these questions.

It is sufficient, ip order to dispose of the legal questions raised on the record, to give a general outline of the evidence adduced by the parties to sustain their respective contentions.. The plaintiff offered evidence tending to prove the following facts: That he was a member of an amateur dramatic club, composed of young people of both sexes of the town of Elkton, formed for the purpose of giving entertainments to raise funds for the benefit of Washington Camp of the Patriotic Order Sons of America; that on the 5th of March, 1907, about twenty-four members of this club went from Elkton to Havre de Grace by defendant’s train, and gave an entertainment at night in the Opera House at that place; that after the close of the exhibition the plaintiff, with other members of the company, went to the station of the defendant about ten o’clock P. M. to take a train back to Elk-ton ; that while he was occupying one of the benches in defendant’s waiting room and behaving in a quiet and orderly manner he observed Milton Baldwin, an officer of the defendant, approach Earnest Moore, another member of the theatricál troupe, seize him and pull him from the bench upon which he was sitting in the waiting room, throw him upon the floor and place his knee upon his breast; that he stepped over to Baldwin and asked him what Moore had done and what he was going to do to him, and that Baldwin, without replying, struck him over the shoulders with an officer’s club, knocking him to the floor; that he got up, went back to his seat and sat down; that afterwards, while standing in the station with his hands in his pockets, Baldwin directed Richard Kelley, a Deputy Sheriff of Havre de Grace, to arrest him; that Kelley did arrest him and handcuff him to Moore and both he and Moore were taken by Baldwin and Kelley to the jail in Havre de Grace and locked up; that Baldwin had the key to the lockup and personally placed plaintiff and Moore in the cell; that the cell in which they were confined was cold, wet, and uncomfortable, and that they were detained therein until the afternoon of March 6th when they were discharged; ⁴⁰ that in consequence of the wet and unfit condition of the cell the plaintiff contracted a severe cold, and was confined in his house for several days in charge of a physician. The evidence offered in behalf of the plaintiff tended to show that he was not smoking in the waiting room, and that he was conducting himself in a proper manner and that the treatment to which he was subjected by Baldwin was utterly unwarranted and was a gross outrage upon him. The evidence on the part of the defendant tended to show that while the members of the troupe were in the station, or waiting room, on the night mentioned, waiting for a late train to take them back to Elkton, the plaintiff and Earnest Moore began smoking cigarettes in the main waiting room in violation of the rules and regulations of the railroad company ; that these rules were indicated by “no smoking” signs hung upon the walls of the room; that the plaintiff and Moore were warned by Baldwin not to smoke, and upon the refusal of Moore to stop smoking Baldwin attempted to eject him from the room; that Moore assaulted Baldwin and was placed under arrest; that the plaintiff seized Baldwin by the shoulders and got upon his back to prevent him from putting Moore out of the room, and for the assault and interference Baldwin caused the arrest of the plaintiff and placed him in the lockup where he remained until the next day.

Baldwin was an employee of the defendant. lie had formerly had charge of the flower gardens along the line of the road from Philadelphia to Washington, and later was put in charge of the freight house at Havre de Grace. A few months before the matters complained of in this case he was appointed night watchman at the new passenger station of the defendant at Havre de Grace. He had charge of the grounds, station, furnace and baggage at night. He had strict orders to stop smoking in the waiting room, and it was his duty'to stop any general disorder around the station.

Shortly after his appointment as night watchman he was appointed by the Mayor of Havre de Grace as a special officer of the Pennsylvania Eailroad, and qualified as such before a Justice of' the ⁴¹ Peace, and was given a certificate of his appointment, and thereafter acted as such officer under that appointment. These are all the facts that need he stated to enable us to dispose of the questions presented by the appeal. Assuming the plaintiff’s evidence to be true, the principal question in the case is whether the defendant is liable for the acts of Baldwin complained of in the declaration. The statement of the rules of law upon this question will necessarily determine the legal sufficiency of the declaration.

By the undisputed evidence the plaintiff was a passenger of the defendant at the time "the alleged trespasses were committed. He had entered a room provided by the defendant company for the accommodation of passengers to wait for a train to take him to his home. This under all the authorities establishes the relation of carrier and passenger. The rule is well settled that a person is a passenger who enters upon the depot grounds for the purpose of taking passage on the train of the carrier.

The fare does not have to be paid, nor the train entered; but the person must merely enter within the control of the carrier at the depot through the usual channels of business with the intention of becoming a passenger by either paying fare before, or after entering the train. B. & O. R. R. Co. v. Chambers, 81 Md. 384 . As a passenger he was entitled to protection against all wrongs done by the employees of the defendant, and for such wrongs done by them whilst they were engaged in and about the performance of their prescribed duties, the master would be liable. The plaintiff was required to show, as a condition precedent to his right to recover, first, that the wrongs sued for were done by an agent or employee of the defendant; secondly, that the employee was acting at the time within the scope of his employment.

Without legally sufficient evidence tending to establish these two facts no case of this nature should be submitted to the jury, and, when submitted, no verdict against the defendant should be rendered unless the jury are satisfied of the existence of these essential facts. These principles are too firmly settled by the decisions in this ⁴² Court to admit of dispute. Carter v. The Howe Machine Company, 51 Md. 290 ; Central Railway Company v. Peacock, 69 Md. 263 ; Deck v. B. & O. R. R. Co., 100 Md. 168 ; B. C. & A. Ry. Co. v. Twilley, 106 Md. 445 ; Tolchester Co. v. Scharnagl, 105 Md. 199 ; B. C. & A. Ry.

Co. v. Ennalls, 108 Md. 75