{ "id": 609247, "name": "Little Rock Traction & Electric Company v. Walker", "name_abbreviation": "Little Rock Traction & Electric Co. v. Walker", "decision_date": "1898-03-19", "docket_number": "", "first_page": "144", "last_page": "151", "citations": [ { "type": "official", "cite": "65 Ark. 144" } ], "court": { "name_abbreviation": "Ark.", "id": 8808, "name": "Arkansas Supreme Court" }, "jurisdiction": { "id": 34, "name_long": "Arkansas", "name": "Ark." }, "cites_to": [ { "cite": "90 N. Y. 77", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "N.Y.", "case_ids": [ 2186371 ], "opinion_index": -1, "case_paths": [ "/ny/90/0077-01" ] }, { "cite": "93 Cal. 562", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "Cal.", "opinion_index": -1 }, { "cite": "3 S. E. 923", "category": "reporters:state_regional", "reporter": "S.E.", "opinion_index": -1 }, { "cite": "47 N. Y. 274", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "N.Y.", "case_ids": [ 509562 ], "opinion_index": -1, "case_paths": [ "/ny/47/0274-01" ] }, { "cite": "133 Mass. 563", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "Mass.", "case_ids": [ 2150893 ], "opinion_index": -1, "case_paths": [ "/mass/133/0563-01" ] }, { "cite": "15 Nev. 167", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "Nev.", "case_ids": [ 2375990 ], "opinion_index": -1, "case_paths": [ "/nev/15/0167-01" ] }, { "cite": "130 Mass. 443", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "Mass.", "case_ids": [ 2128110 ], "opinion_index": -1, "case_paths": [ "/mass/130/0443-01" ] }, { "cite": "32 N. J. L. 334", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "N.J.L.", "case_ids": [ 381242 ], "opinion_index": -1, "case_paths": [ "/njl/32/0334-01" ] }, { "cite": "37 Ala. 560", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "Ala.", "case_ids": [ 8498734 ], "opinion_index": -1, "case_paths": [ "/ala/37/0560-01" ] }, { "cite": "32 N. J. L. 328", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "N.J.L.", "case_ids": [ 381254 ], "opinion_index": -1, "case_paths": [ "/njl/32/0328-01" ] }, { "cite": "15 Nev. 176", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "Nev.", "opinion_index": -1 }, { "cite": "78 Ala. 85", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "Ala.", "opinion_index": -1 }, { "cite": "10 S. W. 744", "category": "reporters:state_regional", "reporter": "S.W.", "opinion_index": -1 }, { "cite": "98 N. C. 34", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "N.C.", "case_ids": [ 11273207 ], "opinion_index": -1, "case_paths": [ "/nc/98/0034-01" ] }, { "cite": "122 U. S. 597", "category": "reporters:federal", "reporter": "U.S.", "case_ids": [ 3521889 ], "opinion_index": -1, "case_paths": [ "/us/122/0597-01" ] }, { "cite": "39 N. 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Rep. 199", "category": "reporters:federal", "reporter": "F.", "case_ids": [ 3778058 ], "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/f/15/0199-01" ] }, { "cite": "90 N. Y. 77", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "N.Y.", "case_ids": [ 2186371 ], "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/ny/90/0077-01" ] }, { "cite": "39 N. Y. 381", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "N.Y.", "case_ids": [ 502236 ], "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/ny/39/0381-01" ] }, { "cite": "51 Md. 290", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "Md.", "case_ids": [ 1826415 ], "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/md/51/0290-01" ] }, { "cite": "78 Md. 394", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "Md.", "case_ids": [ 1790359 ], "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/md/78/0394-01" ] } ], "analysis": { "cardinality": 756, "char_count": 16007, "ocr_confidence": 0.476, "pagerank": { "raw": 2.2551074210918692e-07, "percentile": 0.7819961704331024 }, "sha256": "8a7bc818bdf5658ef7553977e14dbcba9ae8a7b3885d182e73a12aef0372124b", "simhash": "1:9c685fd9d9b4ee9b", "word_count": 2842 }, "last_updated": "2023-07-14T17:01:07.391732+00:00", "provenance": { "date_added": "2019-08-29", "source": "Harvard", "batch": "2018" }, "casebody": { "judges": [], "parties": [ "Little Rock Traction & Electric Company v. Walker." ], "opinions": [ { "text": "Bunn, C. J.\nThis is a suit for malicious prosecution by Albert Walker, the appellee, against the street car company of Little Rock. Judgment for plaintiff, and the defendant appeals.\nWalker was a passenger on one of defendant\u2019s cars, known as the \u201cWest Ninth car,\u201d running from the west on Ninth street to the junction of the several car lines at the crossing of Ninth and Main streets, having paid his fare. When his car arrived at the junction, and was stopped, as usual, on the east track on Main street, and just north of Ninth street, plaintiff alighted from the same; and he took his seat at the near-by-corner of the sidewalk to await the arrival of the Fifteenth street car, coming from the south along the east track on Main, and going to the union depot. While at this corner, plaintiff was engaged in conversation with a woman, subsequently a witness in the case, and the Fifteenth street ear came up, and stopped the usual distance \u2014 fifteen or twenty feet \u2014 in rear of the Ninth street car on the same track as aforesaid. Then the Ninth street car moved off down Main street, and in the usual interval of time the Fifteenth street car followed. The plaintiff neglected to board the latter, as he intended, until, as he testifies, it had started and was moving off slightly; as his companion testifies, until the ear had gone fifteen or twenty feet; and, as the conductor on the car testifies, after it had gone half way to Eighth street. Elsewhere plaintiff also stated that he boarded the Fifteenth street car at Ninth and Main, and that then the transfer man said, \u201cTransfer one.\u201d\nWhen the conductor passed through the car collecting fares, he accosted plaintiff sitting in the rear end, and demanded his fare, which he refused to pay, saying that he was a \u201ctransfer,\u201d meaning that he was entitled to be transferred, having come to the junction as a paid passenger from West Ninth, and that he was entitled to continue to his destination without paying additional fare. There arose a controversy between him and the conductor, who contended that he had not got on the car before it left the junction, and that therefore he had not been transferred. The conductor, being a new man in the business, consulted with the motorman, who was an experienced man, as to what to do in the premises, and was informed that the rule was to put the passenger off if he refused to pay his fare, and this in fact seems to have been the rule. So at Fourth street the conductor called to his aid Rainwater, a policeman, and directed him to put Walker off, as he testified, but, as the policeman testified, directed him to arrest him and take him off. The policeman arrested plaintiff accordingly, and, on arriving at Markham street, took him to the office of the police judge at the city hall, which is near by; and on the following day the plaintiff was tried on a charge preferred by the policeman for violating a city ordinance which made it a misdemeanor for any person to ride on a street car without paying his fare. And the conductor and the transfer agent, whose post was at the junction aforesaid, were summoned and testified, and the plaintiff was discharged, and then brought this suit against the street car company for malicious prosecution, as stated.\nThe proof of the rules of the defendant company is very indefinite and unsatisfactory, but we gather this much from the testimony: That transfers of passengers from the cars of one line to another were allowed to be made only at the junction named; that a passenger alighting from an incoming car remained in the vicinity until the arrival of the car to which he asked to be transferred, and, having been within the view of the transfer agent from the time he alighted from the other car, on his boaikling the latter car, the transfer agent signaled or called to the conductor thereon that one was transferred, or whatever the number might be, and the conductor in this way was directed to demand no additional fares from these transferred passengers. Whether it was allowable for a passenger to board the second car after it had been put in motion, the witnesses do not inform us, except inferentially. From one of the questions put to the transfer agent and answered by him, one would infer that when a passenger alighted from an incoming car, the transfer agent called out \u201ctransfer the party.\u201d Such a direction would be nonsensical, until the ear to which he wished to be transferred should arrive, and we presume that is what was meant.\nHowever this may be, we will assume, for the sake of the argument, at least, that the police judgment was based upon a proper construction of the testimony, and that the plaintiff was entitled to ride on the Fifteenth street car to his destination without paying the additional fare, and that his ejectment from the car was wrongful, and that his subsequent prosecution was also wrongful; and even, for the sake of the argument, we will say that the arrest and prosecution were at the instance of the conductor, and that from his conduct in relation thereto malice may be inferred. This brings us squarely to the only strictly legal proposition in this case, and that is, was the defendant company liable for the acts of its employee, the conductor, in this regard?\nThe defendant\u2019s contention is, in effect, that it is not liable unless there is proof of its express authority to its employee to arrest and prosecute delinquent passengers for a violation of the law on the subject. In determining what may be regarded as express authority, we may include, for the purposes of this discussion, not only authority given in express words, but such authority as necessarily follows by implication from the express language conferring the authority.\nCentral Railroad Company v. Brewer, 78 Md. 394, was a case wherein a person, on entering a street car, deposited in the fare box a coin resembling a five cent piece or nickel, and shortly thereafter was informed by the driver that he had dropped a \u201clead nickel\u201d into the box (pointing it out to him), and was requested to redeem it, and he refused to do so; and he', after leaving the car, was arrested at the instance of the superintendent of the company, and held to bail, and tried on a charge of passing counterfeit money. Upon the evidence the United States commissioner before whom the preliminary trial was had discharged him, and he then brought suit for malicious prosecution and false arrest. The trial court having given four several instructions at the instance of the plaintiff, the defendant asked the following instruction, which was not covered by any of those given, and the same was refused, to-wit: \u201c(2.) That there is no evidence in the case legally sufficient to prove that any of the officers or agents of the defendant corporation were authorized by the company to have the arrest made, which is complained of in the complaint, or that the company subsequently adopted and ratified the acts of said officers or agents,- and the verdict must be for the defendant.\u201d After disposing of the various other questions involved, the supreme court of Maryland held that the company was not liable for the acts of the superintendent in causing the arrest and prosecution of the plaintiff, there being'shown no express authority from the company to him to do so, nor ratification by it afterwards, as was assumed in the instruction askedrid a refused. To the same effect are Carter v. Home Machine Co., 51 Md. 290; Pressley v. Mobile & G. R. Co., 15 Fed. Rep. 199; Mali v. Lord, 39 N. Y. 381; 1 Biddle, Insurance, \u00a7 118, and the following English cases, to-wit: Eastern Counties R. Co. v. Broom, 6 Exch. 314; Roe v. Birkenhead, etc. R. Co., 7 Exch. 36; Poulton v. London & S. W. R. Co., L. R. 2 Q. B. 534; Edwards v. London & N. W. R. Co., L. R. 5 C. P. 445; and Allen v. London & S. W. R. Co., L. R. 6 Q. B. 65 \u2014 all cited in appellant\u2019s brief.\nThere is in the case at bar no proof of an express authority from the company to the street car conductor to prosecute a passenger for refusing to pay his fare. Moreover, there is no connection whatever between his authority to put a delinquent passenger off his ear (given expressly under the rules of the company), and thus prevent a further imposition on the part of the passenger, and the authority to arrest him and prosecute him for a violation of the criminal laws in attempting to ride on the car without paying his fare. Nor can the limited authority of a car conductor from the company to put a delinquent passenger off be enlarged by his calling to his aid a policeman whose general powers as such are to make arrests and prosecute for violation of the municipal law.\nNothing else being said, in such a case, the policeman is called in to aid the conductor in the execution of the conductor\u2019s powers, and not those belonging to his office generally. Of course, the conductor could have, independently and on his own responsibility, caused the arrest to be made, and could have prosecuted; but could he do so as conductor of the street ear, is the question here, and the authorities cited are to the effect that he could not do so, and bind his company, without express authority being shown.\nAs a matter of fact, the conductor in this instance, in all probability, never intended to do more than act upon the advice of the experienced motorman (that is, put the plaintiff off the car), and never had the idea of prosecuting, maliciously or otherwise; and all the play between himself and the policeman as to their use and understanding of the words \u201cput off\u201d and \u201carrest7 amount to nothing more than an illustration of the fact that we give meaning to words according to the lingo of our several callings, and as habit and association have determined. But we express no fixed opinion as to the facts.\nThe plaintiff\u2019s counsel cite many authorities which they contend are in contradiction to the doctrines of the Maryland and other decisions cited. But, after a careful examination of all of them-, we find no real conflict between the principles they announce and the principles