Chicago & Eastern Railroad v. Flexman

Citations

• 103 Ill. 546
• 1882 Ill. LEXIS 211

Syllabus

<p>1. Master and servant—liability of master for trespass of servant. Where a servant goes outside of his employment, and while not acting in pursuance of the authority given him inflicts a willful injury upon one not entrusted to his care by the master, or on one to whom the master owes no duty, the act will be that of the servant alone, and the master can not be held responsible for it.</p> <p>2. Same—carrier’s duty to protect passengers—liability for acts of servant. A carrier, whether by steamboat, railway, or otherwise, is under obligation to convey his passenger safely and properly, and to treat him respectfully, and if he entrusts this duty to his servants, the law holds him responsible for the manner in which they execute the trust.</p> <p>3. A carrier must not only protect his passengers against the violence and insults of strangers and co-passengers, but also against the violence and assaults of his own servants. If this protection is not afforded, and the passenger is assaulted and beaten through the negligence of the carrier’s servants, he will be responsible for the injury, and especially for the assault of his servants.</p> <p>4. Where a passenger on arriving at the place to which he had paid his fare on a railroad train missed his watch, and supposing it to have been stolen, refused to leave the train until he should recover his watch, and the conductor consented that he might remain .on the train until it reached another station, and after the train had started and a partial search had been made, a passenger asked who he thought had his watch, when he replied, “That fellow,” pointing at a brakeman, who immediately struck him in the face with a lantern: Held, that the facts showed a right of action against the railroad company for the injury inflicted by its servant, and that the company occupied the same position towards the passenger as if he had paid his fare to such other station.</p>