Tolchester Beach Improvement Co. v. Scharnagl

Burke, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. This is an action for trespass for assault, false arrest and imprisonment. The declaration alleges that on the 10th of July, 1905, the plaintiff, Joseph Scharnagl, purchased a ticket ²⁰⁷ from Baltimore to Tolchester and return, and became a passenger on the defendant’s steamboat Louise ; that at said time .the defendant was a common carrier of passengers and navigated the Patapsco. River and Chesapeake Bay between the city of Baltimore and Tolchester in Kent County; that while a passenger on said steamboat en route to Tolchester the plaintiff was violently seized and arrested by a servant aud agent of the defendant, and taken from the cabin of said steamboat and confined in a lockup on said steamboat; that the said plaintiff when arrested as aforesaid was demeaning himself quietly and orderly with the other ladies and gentlemen who were of his party, and upon inquiry made of said servant, as he was being taken from the cabin to the lockup, why he was arrested, the only answer given him was that it was all right; that the plaintiff, after being placed in said lockup and kept there for sometime was released, and then informed that a mistake had been made and he was not the person intended to be arrested; that his arrest aforesaid was witnessed by a large number of passengers who were on said steamboat, and by said arrest and confinement in said lockup he was greatly mortified and humiliated and suffered great mental pain and anguish, and was otherwise damaged.

The defendant pleaded the general issue, and the case was tried upon the joinder of issue upon that plea, and resulted in a judgment for the plaintiff, from which this appeal was taken. One exception only — that to the ruling of the Court upon the prayers — is presented by the record. It is not disputed that at the time of the commission of the wrongs complained of, the defendant was a common carrier, and that the plaintiff was a passenger for hire aboard its steamboat Louise as stated in the declaration. The relation of passenger and carrier being shown to exist between the appellant company and Joseph Scharnagl, the law imposed upon the carrier a primary duty to protect him during the existence of that relation, and if he were unjustifiably assaulted or arrested, or imprisoned whilst that relation continued by the servants or agents of the carrier, while acting within the scope ²⁰⁸ of their duty, the carrier would be liable..

This proposition is so firmly settled in this State and elsewhere that it seems needless to quote authorities to support it. In B. & O. R. R. Co. v. Cain, 81 Md. 105 , which was an action for false imprisonment wherein it appeared that the plaintiff was arrested and imprisoned whilst a passenger by order of the defendant’s conductor this Court, speaking through Judge McSherry, said: “If the plaintiff had been guilty of no breach of the peace, his arrest at the instance of the conductor was unlawful, and having been made in the defendant’s depot whilst the plaintiff, a passenger, was still entitled to be protected against assaults and injuries by the defendant’s own employees, if wrongfully made by or at the request of the defendant’s own servants whilst they were in and about the performance of their pre-' scribed duties, the master would be liable.” In Central Railway Company v. Peacock, 69 Md. 262 , the Court said: “The Supreme Court of the United States, in New Jersey Steamboat Company v. Brockett, 121 U. S. 645 , decided unequivocally that the carrier of passengers must protect his passengers from the violence of the carrier’s employees, as also from that of other passengers; but there is nothing in the decision in conflict with the doctrine that to render the carrier liable the employee must be at the time acting in the employment of the railroad, and within the line of his duty, and the decision assumes that the party is a passenger when injured; for that was the fact in the case.” The statement of the law by this Court is in harmony with direct decisions in other jurisdictions. Indianapolis R. Co. v. Cooper, 33 N. E. 219 ; Duggan v. B. & O. R. R. Co., 59 Pa. 248 . Scharnagl being a passenger for hire, and the defendant’s duty towards him being established, we will now inquire whether there is found in the record evidence tending to prove the allegations of assault, arrest and imprisonment found in the declaration.

Upon this branch of the case the testimony, as usual, is conflicting, but with the weight and credibility of the evidence this Court has nothing t.o do, those matters being committed by the law to the sole