Hyperlawhypertext legal database Mulligan v. New York & Rockaway Beach Railway Co. 42 N.Y. St. Rep. 83

← Cases

Mulligan v. New York & Rockaway Beach Railway Co.

42 N.Y. St. Rep. 83 Court N.Y. Decision date 1892-01-20 English

Decision Majority — O’Brien, J. · Dissent — Earl, J.

Contents

Majority

p. 83
John J. Mulligan, Resp’t, v. The New York & Rockaway Beach Railway Co., App’lt.[1]
(Court of Appeals,
Filed January 20, 1892.)

Headnote

False imprisonment—Common carrier—Principal and agent.
Defendant’s ticket agent, having been warned against certain counterfeits, received a five dollar bill from plaintiff in payment of excursion tickets on defendant’s railroad, and ten minutes afterward caused the arrest of the latter while waiting on defendant’s platform for the arrival of his train. The bill proved genuine and plaintiff was discharged after being taken through the street and imprisoned for an hour. Held, that the defendant was not liable, as the agent was not acting within the scope and. in the line of his duty as defendant’s agent.
(Earl and Finch, JJ., dissent.)
Appeal from judgment of the supreme court, general term, second department, affirming judgment in favor of plaintiff. •
The material facts of this case are substantially as follows: On the afternoon of the 1 Oth of July, 1888, the plaintiff, accompanied by a friend, went to defendant’s station at East New York and purchased tickets for passage to Rockaway Beach and back. He gave the station agent a five dollar bill and received back the tickets and his change, with which he passed out to the platform and he waited there for the train. In about ten minutes the ticket agent, accompanied by two policemen, came out on the platform and pointed out to the policemen the plaintiff and his friend, and said, in substance, that they had passed a counterfeit five dollar bill upon him, and he directed the police officer to arrest the two men. The policeman told the ticket agent that he believed that there must be some mistake, as he knew the plaintiff and his friend to be reputable business men, and could not believe that they had committed the crime. The' agent, however, said that they had passed the counterfeit bill upon him, and that he could not be mistaken, and he ended by insisting that the policeman should arrest the plaintiff and his friend, which was accordingly done. The plaintiff and his friend were taken through the street to the police station in custody, a distance of a mile. On arriving at the police station the five dollar bill which the plaintiff had given to the ticket agent was sent to a neighboring bank and was there pronounced good. The police sergeant sent for the ticket agent, and after he came the facts were explained to him and he
p. 84
said he was sorry for what he had done and wanted plaintiff and his friend to excuse him, after which plaintiff and his friend were discharged. They had been detained an hour or so at the police station. Subsequently he commenced this action to recover damages for the assault upon him, and his arrest, and he recovered a verdict.
• JE. B. Hinsdale, for app’lt; Olías. J. Patterson, for resp’t.

The plaintiff recovered damages in this case upon :an allegation that he was unlawfully arrested and imprisoned by the defendant. The legal question involved relates to the respon-. .sibility of the defendant for the conduct of a ticket agent under the following circumstances. On the 10th of July, 1888, the plaintiff and a companion went to the defendant’s station,- at the corner of Atlantic avenue and Yesta street, Brooklyn, and procured from the ticket agent there two excursion tickets to Bock-away Beach. The plaintiff handed to the agent a new five dollar bill in payment for the tickets, and received from him the tickets and the change. A very short time before the plaintiff -and his friend appeared at the station and purchased the ticket, a detective connected with the Brooklyn police force came to the station and left with the agent the following paper: “ Look out for three men passing $5.00 counterfeit bills, Garfield’s picture. One 35 years, blue coat, black slouch hat, small dark mustache. One 40 years, dark alpaca coat, black pants, slouch hat, the other 35 years, blue suit, black slouch hat, full red whiskers; looks like Italian.” When the plaintiff and his companion came to the station, the ticket agent supposed they were two of the persons described in the notice left with him by the detective. The agent’s .statement as to what took place between himself and the detective before the plaintiff appeared at the station, and his action in consequence down to the time of the arrest, is hot contradicted. The .agent was told by the detective that if any of these men referred to in the paper put in an appearance to have the officers arrest them. He says that the two men walked up to the window of the ticket office, and the plaintiff took a brand new five dollar bill from his pocket and asked for two tickets for Boclcaway Beach and return. What the agent then did is, perhaps, best expressed in his own language. He says: “ I took the money from him, and gave him the two tickets; didn’t let on anything at the time; took the bill and left it one side, because it looked ‘ queer.’ After the two went outside a messenger boy came in; I took the bill up before the messenger came; took a pin and pulled to find the two parallel silk threads that run through the bill; it appears in all these kind of bills that are made with the distributor fibre through; it is like a pencil mark, red and blue, and when I picked at it I could not see anything in it, and as I have no instructions to arrest anybody, I tools; the bill, and when the messenger boy came in I told him to take the bill, go up to the Howard House and see if he could find Detective McNeany. If he did, to give him the bill and tell him that the men who had the bill were here at the station. I told him that if he didn’t find him to give it to the

p. 85
ticket agent at the Howard House, the detective said something about giving him the bill and to ask him if that was the bill. I sent the bill away by this boy, the same bill that I received. Afterward Officer Kenney and the messenger boy came in. The bill was not returned to me. I never had the bill after I gave it to the messenger boy.” It seems that in consequence of the action of the agent that the police arrived in a short time after the tickets had been purchased and while the plaintiff and his companion were sitting on a bench outside, and as the plaintiff claims the agent pointed him out to the police and directed them to arrest him. He was arrested and brought to the police court, when, it appearing that the bill was good, be was discharged. The transaction immediately preceding the arrest is thus described by the plaintiff:

“ I went in and handed him in a five dollar bill to the ticket agent, asked him for two return tickets for Eockaway; he took the bill and looked at me; I thought it was some young man that might have known me, he was going so slow, going to make the change and give me the tickets; and walked back in the rear of the office; there was an operator, a lady, sitting there; he had some conversation with her, and in another corner was a boy; in another corner of the room; he came back to me and looked at me again; I says, you ought to be in a little more hurry than that; he didn’t say a word, but handed me out the change and my return tickets; the change of the five dollar bill, which I think was four thirty, or whatever it was. Then we walked out on the platform, down on the Atlantic avenue side and sat on the bench of the station platform for ten or fifteen minutes, waiting for the train to come up. It is a regular platform ; I think there is a porch over it. I did not have to pass through a gate to go to it.” After the plaintiff was pointed out to the police by the agent he was brought into the ticket office and the agent then charged him with having passed to him a five dollar counterfeit bill, which the plaintiff denied but gave to the agent another bill in its place. The agent denied that he gave any direction to the police to make the arrest and there was some question on the trial as to whether the bill that was actually passed by the plaintiff was the bill produced before the police magistrate and found by him to be good, but these questions must be regarded as settled in the plaintiff’s favor by the verdict of the jury.

Assuming, as we must, that the agent directed the arrest and that the plaintiff had committed no offense that justified it, the question still remains whether the agent was acting in the line of his duty so as to make the defendant responsible for his acts. It is quite clear from the evidence that the agent was first put upon his guard, and in fact set in motion, not by any direction from the defendant, but by the police. When he took the bill he knew or at least believed it to be a counterfeit, but notwithstanding this he gave the plaintiff defendant’s property for it, whereas it was his duty, considering him merely as the agent of the defendant, to refuse it He did not take the bill in the course of his business

p. 86
as agent, but for the purpose.of entrapping persons that he believed to be engaged in the commission of crimes. This may have been laudable enough on his part as a citizen or as a person aiding the police, but he was not acting in the line of his duty' as-defendant’s agent. If he had been cheated or imposed upon by the plaintiff, or if he honestly believed he had been, and then attempted to recover what he had, or supposed he had, lost by the arrest of the plaintiff, it might then be said that he w as engaged in the protection of the property and interests of the defendant, and, therefore, acting within the line of his duty. But where a ticket agent of a railroad deliberately takes from a person applying to purchase a ticket what he believes to be a counterfeit five dollar bill, not, of course, in good faith or in the regular and ordinary course of his business, but for the purpose of aiding the police in the detection of criminals, and then immediately directs the arrest of the person from whom he took the bill, such an act on his part is not binding on his principal. If he was, in fact, acting within the scope and in the line of his duty he would have refused to receive what he believed to be counterfeit money for the property of his principal, and would have refused to part with such property except upon receipt of what at least he believed to be good money. The defendant, as a citizen, might with perfect propriety render to the police such services as he could in procuring the detection and arrest of persons engaged in passing counterfeit money, but it does not follow that all his acts in that respect are binding on the defendant.

■ The charge, therefore, that the defendant procured the plaintiff to be arrested without cause was not made out, as the act of the ticket agent in this respect cannot be attributed to it. The remaining question is whether it was shown that the defendant is liable for a breach of its contract with the plaintiff as a passenger, or for neglect of any duty it owed to him growing out of the relation of passenger and carrier. The law is settled that a common carrier, by its contract of transportation, undertakes to protect the passenger against any injury arising from the negligence or willful misconduct of its servants while engaged in performing a duty which the carrier owes to him. Stewart v. B. & C. R. R. Co., 90 N. Y., 588 .

Upon the facts disclosed by the record it is very difficult to bring this Case within that principle. All we know with respect to the duties of the agent is that he sold tickets at the station from a place behind a window in the waiting room. It does not appear that he had any charge of the place where the plaintiff was when arrested, or that the plaintiff was, within the meaning of the decisions, in his custody or under his protection, or that the ticket agent was entrusted by the defendant with any powers or duties with respect to the execution of contracts for the transportation of passengers. .Upon the facts disclosed at the trial it would be quite difficult, if not impossible, to classify the act of the agent in pointing out the plaintiff to the police and directing his arrest as negligence or willful misconduct. There can be no doubt that a conductor-or like agent of a carrier of passengers, who has them in

Dissent

p. 87
his charge and under his care, may violate the duty which he owes to them by directing an arrest without cause for which his principal may be held liable, but sufficient was not shown in this case to bring it within that rule.

The judgment should be reversed and a new trial granted^ costs to abide the event.

(dissenting).—The plaintiff purchased of the defendant’s agent at East Rew York two tickets for himself and friend to Eockaway Beach and back over its railway, and immediately passed out of the depot building onto the platform outside, where he took a seat under an awning upon a bench provided for passengers who were awaiting trains. By the purchase of these tickets the relation of carrier and passenger was created between him and it, its agreement implied from the facts being that it would, upon its first train stopping at that station, carry him to his destination. The train was soon expected, and while he was there waiting for it'he was entitled to a safe place to stand or sit,* and it was under obligation to him that he should not be injured by the careless or willful misconduct of any of its employees or agents. Carpenter v. Boston & Albany R. R. Co., 97 N. Y., 494 . In that case after the plaintiff had purchased his ticket for a passage on the defendant’s road, and while he was standing on the platform at the depot, a postal clerk threw a mail bag from the train, which struck and injured him; and Danforth, J., writing the opinion, said : “ The plaintiff was injured before the actual commencement of his journey, but he was lawfully on the platform because he was a passenger.” And it was held that it is the duty of a railroad corporation to provide for a passenger a safe passage to the train he desires to take, and to take reasonable care that he shall not, while on its premises, be exposed to any unnecessary danger, or to one of which it is aware; that it is bound to exercise the utmost vigilance not only in guarding its passengers against careless interference by others, but even against violence, and if in consequence of neglecting this duty, a passenger receives injury, which, in view of all the circumstances, might have been reasonably anticipated, it is liable.

Ro one will question, that if the plaintiff while sitting upon the bench waiting for the train had been injured by the carelessness of one of the defendant’s employees, it would have been liable ; and it is now well settled that where a railroad company would be liable for the careless act of its employee, it would also be liable for his willful or malicious act, causing injury to a passenger whom it was bound to keep and carry safely. In White v. Twenty-third St. R. R. Co., 20 W. Dig., 510, it was held that if a passenger on a street railway is ejected from the car and assaulted by the driver, when the fare has been put in the box, the company is liable, and also for causing the arrest of the passenger.

In Hamel v The B. & N.Y. Ferry Co., 25 St. Rep. 153 ; affirmed in this court, 125 N. Y., 707 ; 34 St. Rep., 1013 , the action was for assault and battery and false imprisonment, and it was held that ¡the court correctly charged that if the defendant’s employee un

p. 88
justifiably assaulted the plaintiff while and because plaintiff attempted to pass through a gate which the employee was in charge of, and as part of the same transaction, and assuming to act under the defendant’s authority called in a police officer and had the plaintiff arrested, defendant was liable, and that it was immaterial whether it authorized the arrestor nob In Stewart v. Brooklyn Crosstown R. R. Co., 90 N. Y., 588 , where the plaintiff was a passenger on one of the defendant’s street cars, and was unjustifiably assaulted and beaten by the driver, it was held in an action to recover damages therefor that it was liable; that the rule relieving a master from liability for a malicious injury inflicted by his servant when not acting within the scope of his employment does not apply as between a common carrier of passengers and a passenger; that such a carrier undertakes to protect the passenger against any injury arising from the negligence or willful misconduct of its servants while engaged in performing a duty which the carrier owes to the passenger. In that case Judge Tracy writing the opinion of the court cited many authorities ; and among other things said: “ In the present case the defendant had entrusted the execution of the contract to the driver of the car, and the plaintiff was under his protection. Any breach of the contract committed by the driver, was a breach committed by the defendant It is conceded that any injury arising from the mere negligence of the servant constitutes a breach of the contract Had the driver while executing the contract carelessly and negligently injured the plaintiff, the defendant’s liability would not have been doubted. Can it be less a breach of the contract that the injury was intentionally inflicted? An act which would amount to a breach of the carrier’s contract, if negligently done, would be equally a breach if done willfully and maliciously. It is immaterial whether a breach of contract results from the negligence or willfulness of the defendant’s agent. It is the injury that was suffered by the plaintiff while in the defendant’s car, and not the motive which induced it, that constitutes the gist of the action.

“No reason exists for holding a master liable for the negligence of servants in his employment which does not with equal force preclude him from alleging intentional default of the servant as an excuse for not performing a duty which he has undertaken. In the former case the negligence of the servant is that of the master, and that is the ground of the master’s liability; in the latter the act of the servant is the act of the master, the motive of the servant making no difference in regard to the legal character of the master’s default in doing his duty. * * * A rule which should make the carrier liable when the act resulting in the injury was carelessly, but unintentionally done, and exonerate him when the injury was the result of the intentional act of the servant, would lead to most absurd results.”

In Dwinelle v. N. Y. C., etc., R. R. Co., 120 N. Y., 122 ; 30 St. Rep., 578 , it was held that a railroad company by the sale of a ticket for passage on its road assumes the obligation, and undertakes absolutely to protect the passenger against any injury from negligence or willful misconduct of its servants while performing

p. 89
its contract; and that whatever may be the motive which incites the servant to commit an unlawful or improper act towards the passenger during the existence of the relation of carrier and passenger, the carrier is liable for the act and its natural and legitimate consequences. In such a ease, too, it has been held that it is wholly immaterial upon the question of the defendant’s liability that the servants acted in good faith. Hamilton v. R. R. Co., 53 N. Y., 25 . In this case the relation of carrier and passenger having been created by the purchase of the tickets, the plaintiff was just as much entitled to protection against the wrongful acts of the defendant’s servants as if at the time of the assault upon him and his arrest he had been in one of its cars. He was in a place where he had a right to be, and where under the rules of law announced in the cases cited he was entitled to protection against injury from the negligent or willful acts of its servants. It is immaterial what the ticket agent’s motive may have been. He may have been prompted by the desire to do a jrablic service by the arrest of criminals, or by a malicious motive, simply to do the plaintiff an inj ury, and still, under the authorities cited, the defendant was liable for his acts.

Suppose, instead of directing the police officer to arrest the plaintiff, he himself had seized and confined him in the depot; would any one then contend that the defendant would not be liable? And can it be said that that case would have been any different in principle from this? Suppose, instead of directing the police officer to arrest him, he himself had made the arrest and dragged the plaintiff through the streets to the police station; can it be doubted that the defendant would have been liable ? The law makes it liable in such cases simply because of the unlawful interference with the person of the plaintiff, a passenger, by one of its employees, and the motive of the employee is entirely immaterial upon the question of its liability. The motive may operate upon the question of damages, but cannot wholly shield the defendant against liability. The agent not only caused the arrest, but in violation of the duty which the defendant owed the plaintiff, growing out of the sale of tickets, and the contract thus made to carry him to his destination, he broke the contract by rendering it impossible that the plaintiff could be carried. Instead of going upon the train, as he had the right to do under his contract, by the act of its agent he was taken to a police station and kept under arrest for an hour or more. Can a ticket agent sell tickets to a passenger and then arrest him, or cause him to be arrested, so that he cannot take passage upon the train for which he has purchased a ticket, and the railroad company escape all responsibility for his acts ?

If the plaintiff had been a mere lounger in or about the defendant’s depot, having no relations with it, not a passenger, different rules of law would apply, and it may well be that upon the facts as they appear it would not have been liable for the assault upon him and his arrest. Its liability to him grows out of the fact that he was a passenger entitled to its protection.

p. 90
No question was made upon the trial as to the extent of the ticket agent’s authority. It was there assumed that he was the-agent having the charge of the depot at Bast New York. It does-not appear that there was any other agent at that point. He is spoken of in the evidence as the agent. The general- superintendent of the defendant’s road testified that he was “ the agent ” of the defendant at Bast New York; and in the motion by the defendant’s counsel for a nonsuit he was spoken of as “ the agent of the defendant. The judge, in his charge to the jury, spoke of him as “ the ticket agent in charge of this station,” and no exception whatever was taken to this- remark, and no claim whatever was there made by the defendant that he was not its agent in charge of that depot.

We, therefore, see no reason to doubt that the judgment in favor of the plaintiff is right and should be affirmed, with costs.

Judgment reversed and new trial granted, costs to abide the-event.

Andrews, Peckham and Gray, JJ., concur; Earl, J., reads-for affirmance, and Finch, J., concurs.