Pullman Palace Car Co. v. Reed

Citations

• 75 Ill. 125

Syllabus

<p>1. Excessive damages — expelling passenger from sleeping berth who had lost his ticket. Where a passenger had purchased a ticket for a particular berth in a sleeping car and had lost the same, but gave satisfactory assurance that he had purchased the same, was expelled from the sleeping car, there being no abusive language or personal violence used by the conductor in charge, in an honest purpose to execute a reasonable rule of the company, but through a mistaken judgment, it was held that a verdict,in a suit by the passenger against the company, for $3,000 damages was grossly excessive, and that in such a case, where men might honestly differ in opinion, and where the passenger might have kept bis berth by paying the fare of $1.50, but would not, he was only entitled to recover the price he paid for his ticket and a reasonable compensation for the trouble and inconvenience he suffered by being deprived of his berth in the sleeping car.</p> <p>2. Where the expulsion of a passenger from a sleeping car is done under a mistaken sense of duty, and the facts do not show it was done willfully, maliciously or wantonly, so as to justify the imposition of exemplary damages, the damages awarded should, in some degree, be proportionate to the magnitude and character of the actual wrong done.</p> <p>3. Carriers of passengers — rules requiring tickets. Carriers of passengers may lawfully require those seeking to be carried, to purchase tickets when convenient facilities to that end are afforded, to exhibit them to the person designated hy the carrier for that purpose, and surrender them after securing their seats, when required hy the person in charge. Such requirements are reasonable ones to protect the carrier against imposition and the fraud of its employees.</p>