Baltimore, Chesapeake & Atlantic Railway Co. v. Kirby

Citations

• 88 Md. 409
• 41 A. 777
• 1898 Md. LEXIS 199

Syllabus

<p>Carriers of Passengers — Ejection from Train — Refusal to give up Ticket — Instructions to the fury.</p> <p>When the conductor refuses to accept a passenger’s ticket and demands payment of the fare although the ticket is good, yet, if he subsequently offers to accept the ticket and the passenger refuses to surrender it or to pay the fare, the latter has no right of action for ejection from the train.</p> <p>In an action against a carrier for unlawful ejection from a train the plaintiff’s evidence was that he offered a ticket which was good for the passage and the conductor refused to accept it. The defendant’s evidence was that the plaintiff refused either to deliver a ticket or pay the fare. Held, that a prayer instructing the jury that the plaintiff is entitled to recover if the conductor refused to accept the ticket and expelled plaintiff from the car, is erroneous, because calculated to mislead the jury. They should have been instructed that although the conductor had once refused the ticket offered by the plaintiff, yet if he afterwards, before ejecting the plaintiff, demanded the ticket or the payment of the fare, and that the plaintiff refused both demands, and that thereupon he ejected the plaintiff, there could be no recovery.</p> <p>In such action it is error to submit to the jury the question as to what and how much misconduct on the part of the plaintiff, constitutes a justification for his expulsion from the cars. It is the duty of the Court to tell the jury what facts disclosed by the evidence would constitute such a justification, and it was the province of the jury to determine whether such facts were established by the evidence.</p>