Morey v. Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific Railway Co.

Citations

• 86 Kan. 73
• 119 P. 544
• 1911 Kan. LEXIS 184

Syllabus

<p>syllabus BY THE COURT.</p> <p>1. Common Carrier — Passenger — Assault by Brakeman. A carrier is liable for a wrongful assault upon a passenger by a brakeman, at least while such brakeman is acting within the line of his employment.</p> <p>2. -Assault — Inability—Question of Fact. Where a train reached a terminal station, at which train crews are changed and the coach in which passengers were riding was taken out of the train without notice to passengers and placed on a siding about four hundred feet away while one of the passengers was in the dining room eating his breakfast, and when the passenger returned to the train and found a new crew in charge of the train and the car in which he had been riding and which contained his baggage had been set out, and when he went to that car for his baggage the brakeman who had been with the train up to that point was present in unifdrm and assuming to be in control of the car, and when chided for not warning the passengers that the car containing their baggage was to be cut out, made a violent assault on the passenger, held, that although it was the end of the brakeman’s run, and that ordinarily his duty ceases when the new crew takes charge of the train,' the testimony is sufficient to make a question of fact whether the brakeman was a servant of the company and in the line of his employment when the assault was made and is sufficient to support the verdict of the jury finding the company liable for the injuries inflicted.</p>