1. A carrier of passengers for hire is bound to observe the
utmost caution, and is responsible to them for such injuries
received in the course of their transportation as might have been
avoided or guarded against by his exercise of extraordinary
vigilance, aided by the highest skill.
2. Such caution and vigilance extend to all the appliances and
means used by him in transporting them. He must therefore provide
cars or vehicles adequate, that is, sufficiently secure as to
strength and other requisites, for their safe conveyance, and he is
liable in damages if, by reason of the slightest negligence or
fault in that regard, injury results to a passenger.
3. A passenger purchased from a railroad company a ticket over
its line, and, at the same time, from a palace car company, a
ticket entitling him to a berth in one of its sleeping cars,
constituting a part of the train of the railroad company. In the
course of transportation, he was injured by the falling of a berth
in the sleeping car in which he was at the time riding.
Held that for the purposes of the contract with the
railroad company for transportation, and in view of its obligation
to use only cars that were adequate for safe conveyance, the palace
car company, its conductor and porter, were in law the servants and
employees of the railroad company, and that the negligence of
either of them, as to any matters involving the safety or security
of passengers was that of the railroad company.
4. In such case, the injured passenger being entitled only to
compensatory damages,
Page 102 U. S. 452
evidence as to his poverty or the number and ages of his
children is irrelevant.
5. Where, before the final submission of the case to the jury,
irrelevant evidence which had been admitted was withdrawn and they
were instructed to disregard it,
held that an exception to
the action of the court will not be sustained, the presumption
being, so far as this court is concerned,
that, under such circumstances the jury based their verdict upon
legal evidence only.
The facts are stated in the opinion of the Court.
MR. JUSTICE HARLAN delivered the opinion of the Court.
This is a writ of error from a judgment for the sum of $10,000,
the amount assessed as damages sustained by the defendant in error,
in consequence of personal injuries received while riding, as a
passenger, in a sleeping car which belonged to the Pullman Palace
Car Company, but constituting, at the time the injuries were
received, a part of a train of cars managed and controlled by the
Pennsylvania Company, as lessee and operator of the Pittsburg, Fort
Wayne, and Chicago Railway. The action was commenced in the Supreme
Court of Cook County, Illinois, against the Pennsylvania Company,
the Pittsburg, Fort Wayne, and Chicago Railroad Company, and the
Pullman Palace Car Company. It was subsequently dismissed by the
plaintiff against all the defendants except the Pennsylvania
Company, and then removed for trial into the Circuit Court of the
United States for the Northern District of Illinois, where the
judgment complained of was rendered.
The facts set forth in the bill of exceptions, so far as it is
material to detail them, are these:
On the 5th of June, 1876, Roy, the defendant in error, purchased
at the office of the lessee company, in the City of Chicago, a
"first-class railroad ticket" from that city to Philadelphia over
the line of that company, paying therefor the sum of $14.40. At the
same time and place, and of the same
Page 102 U. S. 453
person, he purchased a sleeping car ticket, issued by the
Pullman Palace Car Company, for the route between the same cities,
and for that ticket he paid the additional sum of $5. He took the
train the same day, going immediately into the section of the
sleeping car corresponding to his ticket.
The next morning, at Alliance, Ohio, upon the invitation of a
friend, traveling upon the same train, he entered the sleeping car
in which that friend was riding, and there engaged with him in
conversation. While so engaged, the upper berth of the section in
which they were sitting fell. Thereupon the porter of the sleeping
car came at once and put up the berth, saying it would not fall
again. Shortly thereafter, the berth fell a second time, striking
the plaintiff upon the head, injuring his brain, incapacitating him
from pursuing his vocation, and necessitating medical
treatment.
After the second falling of the berth, the brace or arm
supporting it was found to be broken.
The evidence introduced by the plaintiff tended also to show
that the Pennsylvania Company provided cars in which passengers
having railroad tickets could ride without purchasing a sleeping
car ticket; that Roy had much experience in traveling, and would
have gone into one of those cars had he not purchased a sleeping
car ticket; that at the time he purchased it, he did not know what
company ran the sleepers, but upon taking the train he ascertained
it was a Pullman car; that the Pullman Palace Car Company was
engaged in furnishing cars to be run in the trains of railroad
companies; that besides the general conductor of the train, there
was a conductor, in uniform, and a porter, whose duty it was to
make up the berths and attend to the wants of passengers occupying
the sleeping car.
Upon the trial, the plaintiff introduced a time and distance
card of the defendant corporation, issued, published, and
circulated by that company during the year 1876, prior to the date
of his injuries. That card, referring to the "Fort Wayne and
Pennsylvania R.R. line," stated that three express trains left
Chicago daily, one "
with popular vestibule sleeping car"
one "with drawing room and hotel car," and one "
with drawing
room sleeping car." It gave notice that "passage,
excursion,
Page 102 U. S. 454
and sleeping car tickets" could be purchased at the defendant
company's office in Chicago. Referring to the "Fort Wayne and
Pennsylvania line," the same card announced that "no road offers
equal facilities in the number of through trains,
equipped with
Pullman palace sleeping cars." It states, among the advantages
of the "Pittsburg, Fort Wayne, and Pennsylvania through line," that
the latter was the "only line running three through trains,
with Pullman palace cars," and "the only line
running
sleeping cars from Chicago and intermediate stations to
Philadelphia without change." The same card gave the rates charged
for berths and sections in Pullman sleeping cars from Chicago to
points east of that city.
The defendant, to maintain the issues on its part, offered to
prove:
1. That the sleeping car in which the accident occurred, and all
the sleeping cars then and theretofore on the defendant's line,
since the 27th of January, 1870, were owned by the Pullman Palace
Car Company, a corporation of the State of Illinois, and not by the
defendant; that said sleeping cars were run in the same trains with
the defendant's cars; that holders of railroad tickets were
entitled to ride in said sleeping cars, provided they also held
sleeping car tickets.
2. That the Pullman Palace Car Company, and it only, issued
tickets for sale entitling passengers to ride in said sleeping
cars; that such tickets were plainly distinguishable from railroad
tickets, and were sold at offices established by said company, and
indicated as places for the sale of such tickets; that the
plaintiff purchased the sleeping car ticket of the same person of
whom he bought the railroad ticket; that the office where purchased
indicated by plain lettering upon its door that it was a place for
the sale of Pullman Palace Car Company tickets, as well as railroad
tickets.
3. That the Pullman Palace Car Company employed persons to take
charge of its cars, and the latter, whilst in use, were in the
immediate charge of a conductor and a porter employed by that
company; that such conductor and porter were the only persons who
had authority to manage and control the interior of said cars, and
the berths and seats and the appurtenances thereto.
Page 102 U. S. 455
To this proof the plaintiff objected, and the objection was
sustained, to which ruling the company excepted.
The court thereupon charged the jury that the proof tended
"to show that the injury was received by reason of the
negligence of the defendant's agents or servants, or by some
negligence in the construction of the car in which the plaintiff
was riding."
To that charge the company at the time excepted, upon the ground
that it was unsupported by the testimony, and because it assumed as
a fact that the persons in charge of the sleeping car were the
company's agents or servants.
The court further charged the jury that
"the defendant has offered in your presence to prove that the
car in which the plaintiff was injured was not the car or the
actual property of the defendant, but was the property of another
corporation. But I instruct, as a part of the law of this case,
that if the car composed a part of the train in which the plaintiff
and other passengers were to be transported upon their journey, and
the plaintiff was injured while in that car, without any fault of
his own, and by reason either of the defective construction of the
car or by some negligence on the part of those having charge of the
car, then the defendant is liable."
To that charge also the defendant excepted.
We are of opinion that there was no substantial error, either in
excluding the evidence offered by the defendant or in the charge to
the jury. The court only applied to a new state of facts principles
very generally recognized as fundamental in the law of passenger
carriers. Those thus engaged are under an obligation arising out of
the nature of their employment and, on grounds of public policy,
vigorously enforced to provide for the safety of passengers whom
they have assumed, for hire, to carry from one place to another. In
Philadelphia & Reading
Railroad Company v. Derby, 14 How. 468, it was said
that when carriers undertake to convey persons by the powerful and
dangerous agency of steam, public policy and safety require that
they be held to the greatest possible care and diligence -- that
the personal safety of passengers should not be left to the sport
of chance, or the negligence of careless agents. This doctrine was
expressly affirmed in
Steamboat New World v.
King, 16 How. 469. In
Stokes v.
Saltonstall, 13 Pet. 181,
Page 102 U. S. 456
affirming the decision of Mr. Chief Justice Taney on the
circuit, we said that although the carrier does not warrant the
safety of the passengers at all events, yet his undertaking and
liability as to them go to the extent that he or his agents, where
he acts by agents, shall possess competent skill and, as far as
human care and foresight can go, he will transport them safely. The
principles there announced were approved in
Railroad
Company v. Pollard, 22 Wall. 341, where, speaking
by the present CHIEF JUSTICE, we said that we saw no necessity for
reconsidering
Stokes v. Saltonstall.
These and many other adjudged cases, cited with approval in
elementary treatises of acknowledged authority, show that the
carrier is required, as to passengers, to observe the utmost
caution characteristic of very careful, prudent men. He is
responsible for injuries received by passengers in the course of
their transportation which might have been avoided or guarded
against by the exercise upon his part of extraordinary vigilance
aided by the highest skill. And this caution and vigilance must
necessarily be extended to all the agencies or means employed by
the carrier in the transportation of the passenger. Among the
duties resting upon him is the important one of providing cars or
vehicles adequate -- that is, sufficiently secure as to strength
and other requisites -- for the safe conveyance of passengers. That
duty the law enforces with great strictness. For the slightest
negligence or fault in this regard from which injury results to the
passenger the carrier is liable in damages. These doctrines to
which the courts, with few exceptions, have given a firm and steady
support and which it is neither wise nor just to disturb or
question, would, however, lose much if not all of their practical
value if carriers are permitted to escape responsibility upon the
ground that the cars or vehicles used by them, and from whose
insufficiency injury has resulted to the passenger, belong to
others.
The undertaking of the railroad company was to carry the
defendant in error over its line in consideration of a certain sum
if he elected to ride in what is known as a first-class passenger
car, with the privilege, nevertheless, expressly given in its
published notices, of riding in a sleeping car,
constituting
a
Page 102 U. S. 457
part of the carrier's train for an additional sum paid
to the company owning such car.
As between the parties now before us, it is not material that
the sleeping car in question was owned by the Pullman Palace Car
Company or that such company provided at its own expense a
conductor and porter for such car, to whom was committed the
immediate control of its interior arrangements. The duty of the
railroad company was to convey the passenger over its line. In
performing that duty, it could not, consistently with the law and
the obligations arising out of the nature of its business, use cars
or vehicles whose inadequacy or insufficiency for safe conveyance
was discoverable upon the most careful and thorough examination. If
it chose to make no such examination or to cause it to be made; if
it elected to reserve or exercise no such control or right of
inspection, from time to time, of the sleeping cars which it used
in conveying passengers as it should exercise over its own cars, it
was chargeable with negligence or failure of duty. The law will
conclusively presume that the conductor and porter assigned by the
Pullman Palace Car Company to the control of the interior
arrangements of the sleeping car in which Roy was riding when
injured exercised such control with the assent of the railroad
company. For the purposes of the contract under which the railroad
company undertook to carry Roy over its line, and in view of its
obligation to use only cars that were adequate for safe conveyance,
the sleeping car company, its conductor and porter, were, in law,
the servants and employees of the railroad company. Their
negligence or the negligence of either of them as to any matters
involving the safety or security of passengers while being conveyed
was the negligence of the railroad company. The law will not permit
a railroad company, engaged in the business of carrying persons for
hire, through any device or arrangement with a sleeping car company
whose cars are used by the railroad company, and constitute a part
of its train, to evade the duty of providing proper means for the
safe conveyance of those whom it has agreed to convey. 2 Kent Com.
600, 12th ed.; 2 Parsons, Contracts, 218, 219, 6th ed.; Story,
Bailments, secs. 601, 601
a, 602; Cooley, Torts, 642;
Wharton, Negligence
Page 102 U. S. 458
(2d ed.), sec. 627
et seq.; Chitty, Carriers, 256
et seq., and cases cited by the authors.
It is also an immaterial circumstance that Roy, when injured,
was not sitting in the particular sleeping car to which he had been
originally assigned. His right, for a time, to occupy a seat in the
car in which his friend was riding was not, and, under the facts
disclosed, could not be questioned.
Whether the Pullman Palace Car Company is not also and equally
liable to the defendant in error, or whether it may not be liable
over to the railroad company for any damages which the latter may
be required to pay on account of the injury complained of, are
questions which need not be here considered. That corporation was
dismissed from the case, and it is not necessary or proper that we
should now determine any question between it and others.
Upon the trial below, the plaintiff was allowed, against the
objection of the defendant, to make proof as to his financial
condition and to show that, after being injured, his sources of
income were very limited.
This evidence was obviously irrelevant. The plaintiff, in view
of the pleadings and evidence, was entitled to compensation, and
nothing more, for such damages as he had sustained in consequence
of injuries received. But the damages were not, in law, dependent
in the slightest degree upon his condition as to wealth or poverty.
It is manifest, however, from the record that the learned judge who
presided at the trial subsequently recognized the error committed
in the admission of that testimony. After charging the jury that
the measure of plaintiff's damages was the pecuniary loss sustained
by him in consequence of the injuries received, and after stating
the rules by which such loss should be ascertained, the court
proceeded:
"But the jury should not take into consideration any evidence
touching the plaintiff's pecuniary condition at the time he
received the injury, because it is wholly immaterial how much a man
may have accumulated up to the time he is injured, the real
question being how much his ability to earn money in the future has
been impaired."
Notwithstanding this emphatic direction that the jury should
Page 102 U. S. 459
exclude from consideration any evidence in relation to the
pecuniary condition of the plaintiff, the contention of the
defendant is that the original error was not thereby cured, and
that we should assume that the jury, disregarding the court's
peremptory instructions, made the poverty of the plaintiff an
element in the assessment of damages; and this although the record
discloses nothing justifying the conclusion that the jury disobeyed
the directions of the court. To this position we cannot assent,
although we are referred to some adjudged cases which seem to
announce the broad proposition that an error in the admission of
evidence cannot afterwards be corrected by instructions to the jury
so as to cancel the exception taken to its admission. But such a
rule would be exceedingly inconvenient in practice, and would often
seriously obstruct the course of business in the courts. It cannot
be sustained upon principle or by sound reason, and is against the
great weight of authority. The charge from the court that the jury
should not consider evidence which had been improperly admitted was
equivalent to striking it out of the case. The exception to its
admission fell when the error was subsequently corrected by
instructions too clear and positive to be misunderstood by the
jury. The presumption should not be indulged that the jury were too
ignorant to comprehend, or were too unmindful of their duty to
respect, instructions as to matters peculiarly within the province
of the court to determine. It should rather be, so far as this
court is concerned, that the jury were influenced in their verdict
only by legal evidence. Any other rule would make it necessary in
every trial, where an error in the admission of proof is committed,
of which error the court becomes aware before the final submission
of the case to the jury, to suspend the trial, discharge the jury,
and commence anew. A rule of practice leading to such results
cannot meet with approval.
There was, however, an error committed upon the trial to which
exception was duly taken, but which does not seem to have been
remedied by any portion of the charge appearing in the bill of
exceptions. The plaintiff was permitted, against the objection of
the defendant, to give the number and ages of his children -- a son
ten years of age and three daughters
Page 102 U. S. 460
of the ages, respectively, of fourteen, seventeen, and
twenty-one. This evidence does not appear to have been withdrawn
from the consideration of the jury. It certainly had no legitimate
bearing upon any issue in the case. The manifest object of its
introduction was to inform the jury that the plaintiff had infant
children dependent upon him for support, and consequently that his
injuries involved the comfort of his family. This proof, in
connection with the impairment of his ability to earn money, was
well calculated to arouse the sympathies of the jury and to enhance
the damages beyond the amount which the law permitted -- that is,
beyond what was, under all the circumstances, a fair and just
compensation to the person suing for the injuries received by him.
How far the assessment of damages was controlled by this evidence
as to the plaintiff's family it is impossible to determine with
absolute certainty; but the reasonable presumption is that it had
some influence upon the verdict.
The court, in a manner well calculated to attract the attention
of the jury, withdrew from their consideration the evidence in
regard to the financial condition of the plaintiff, but as nothing
was said by it touching the evidence as to the ages of his
children, they had the right to infer that the proof as to those
matters was not withdrawn, and should not be ignored in the
assessment of damages.
For this error alone the judgment is reversed, and the cause
remanded for a new trial.
So ordered.