{ "id": 3124056, "name": "Paul Horecker, Appellee, v. Pere Marquette Railroad Company, Appellant", "name_abbreviation": "Horecker v. Pere Marquette Railroad", "decision_date": "1925-10-06", "docket_number": "Gen. No. 30,141", "first_page": "278", "last_page": "283", "citations": [ { "type": "official", "cite": "238 Ill. App. 278" } ], "court": { "name_abbreviation": "Ill. App. Ct.", "id": 8837, "name": "Illinois Appellate Court" }, "jurisdiction": { "id": 29, "name_long": "Illinois", "name": "Ill." }, "cites_to": [ { "cite": "237 Ill. 559", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "Ill.", "case_ids": [ 3386632 ], "pin_cites": [ { "page": "567" } ], "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/ill/237/0559-01" ] }, { "cite": "136 Fed. 306", "category": "reporters:federal", "reporter": "F.", "case_ids": [ 3873392 ], "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/f/136/0306-01" ] }, { "cite": "94 Conn. 707", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "Conn.", "case_ids": [ 389405 ], "pin_cites": [ { "page": "713" } ], "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/conn/94/0707-01" ] }, { "cite": "143 N. C. 176", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "N.C.", "case_ids": [ 8656571 ], "pin_cites": [ { "page": "181" } ], "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/nc/143/0176-01" ] }, { "cite": "243 Mass. 101", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "Mass.", "case_ids": [ 755765 ], "pin_cites": [ { "page": "106" } ], "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/mass/243/0101-01" ] }, { "cite": "69 Md. 257", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "Md.", "case_ids": [ 1044920 ], "pin_cites": [ { "page": "262" } ], "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/md/69/0257-01" ] }, { "cite": "93 Cal. 558", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "Cal.", "case_ids": [ 1941358 ], "pin_cites": [ { "page": "561" } ], "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/cal/93/0558-01" ] }, { "cite": "31 Ill. App. 170", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "Ill. App.", "case_ids": [ 861710 ], "pin_cites": [ { "page": "182" } ], "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/ill-app/31/0170-01" ] }, { "cite": "263 Ill. 236", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "Ill.", "case_ids": [ 4762187 ], "pin_cites": [ { "page": "240" } ], "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/ill/263/0236-01" ] }, { "cite": "28 Ill. 434", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "Ill.", "case_ids": [ 5205308 ], "pin_cites": [ { "page": "435" } ], "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/ill/28/0434-01" ] } ], "analysis": { "cardinality": 556, "char_count": 9453, "ocr_confidence": 0.526, "pagerank": { "raw": 8.033170121246803e-08, "percentile": 0.46547694479485097 }, "sha256": "c51271be63956ee481a9fcccdd8c23da396f71048317fd6eafbdc80eb235b053", "simhash": "1:976cbc8df60dc40b", "word_count": 1632 }, "last_updated": "2023-07-14T20:00:21.859488+00:00", "provenance": { "date_added": "2019-08-29", "source": "Harvard", "batch": "2018" }, "casebody": { "judges": [], "parties": [ "Paul Horecker, Appellee, v. Pere Marquette Railroad Company, Appellant." ], "opinions": [ { "text": "Mr. Justice Gridley\ndelivered the opinion of the court.\nBy this appeal the defendant railroad company seeks to reverse a judgment' for $400 rendered against it, after verdict, in an action for damages for injuries to plaintiff occasioned by an assault and battery com- \u2022 mitted by two of defendant\u2019s gatemen, Sheridan and McGrenera, at its passenger depot at Chicago on July 12, 1921. The defense was that at the time of the committing of the assault upon plaintiff the gatemen were not acting within the scope of their employment and were off duty, and, as plaintiff was not a passenger of defendant\u2019s railroad and had no intention of becoming such, that defendant was not liable for the injuries which he received. At the close of plaintiff\u2019s evidence, and again at the close of all the evidence, defendant moved for a directed verdict in its favor but the motions were denied. Defendant\u2019s counsel here contend that the court erred in these rulings and also that the verdict and judgment are against the law.\nThere is no substantial dispute as to the material facts. Shortly before noon on the day in question plaintiff, accompanied by his wife and young son, went to defendant\u2019s depot for the purpose of putting them on board of one of its trains, bound for South Haven, Michigan. He purchased a ticket for his wife and all went to the proper gate, where the wife\u2019s ticket was shown to the gateman, Sheridan. An altercation there occurred as to whether plaintiff should procure a half-fare ticket for the son, resulting finally in plaintiff\u2019s purchasing such ticket and putting his wife and son on board the train, which shortly thereafter departed. On his .way back through the gate he inquired of Sheridan where the superintendent\u2019s office was, saying he desired to make a complaint as to Sheridan\u2019s previous conduct. After a further altercation plaintiff went into a room near the gate and made his complaint to the superintendent, and then went into the passenger waiting room of the depot to meet a friend, intending to go home with him. In the meantime the lunch hour of Sheridan and another gateman, McG-renera, had arrived and they left their respective gates, put their ticket punches \u201cin the drawer,\u201d and started to go to lunch together, going first into said waiting room. There they met plaintiff and his said friend near the newsstand, which was about 150 feet away from the gate at which Sheridan previously had stood. After certain remarks had been made as to the nature and result of plaintiff\u2019s complaint to the superintendent, heated and insulting words followed, which finally resulted in the two gatemen brutally assaulting plaintiff, knocking him down and injuring him. The evidence is undisputed that at the time of the assault the two gatemen were off duty, and that when on duty their only jobs were to inspect tickets at the gate. McGrenera testified: \u201cMy job there in the depot was \u2018gateing trains.\u2019 I didn\u2019t do anything else, any other work. I guarded, the gates for the Pere Marquette Railroad as well as the Baltimore & Ohio, and so did Sheridan.\u201d Defendant\u2019s station master, Smiley, testified: \u201cI was station master on July 12, 1921. * * * I had two gatemen working for me by the names of Sheridan and McGrenera; their lunch hour was between 12 and 12:30 in the afternoon; their duties as gatemen were to inspect transportation; that is.the only duty they had; they didn\u2019t have any police duties.\u201d\nIn Wood on Master & Servant, sec. 286, p. 552, the author says: \u201cA master is liable for the act of his servant, done in the course of his employment about his master\u2019s business. But he is not responsible for an act done outside of his employment, nor for the wanton violation of the law by him.\u201d The author further says, sec. 307, p. 585: \u201cBy putting the servant in his place, he becomes responsible for all his acts within the line of his employment, even though they are willful and directly antagonistical to his orders. The ' simple test is, whether they were acts within the scope of his employment, \u2014 not whether they were done while prosecuting the master\u2019s business, but whether they were done by the servant in furtherance thereof, and were such as may fairly be said to have been authorized by him.\u201d In 3 Elliott on Railroads (3rd Ed.), pp. 892-95, sec. 1805, in treating of the liability of a railroad company for acts of its employees to others than passengers, the author says: \u201cThe general rule is that a master is liable for the wilful acts of his servants if done in obedience to the master\u2019s order or within the scope of their employment or line of their duty, but not otherwise. * * * If an employee steps aside from the line of his duty and commits an independent tort on his own account and outside of the scope of his employment the master is not liable therefor. Thus a railroad company is not liable for injuries inflicted by an employee in a purely personal quarrel with one between whom and the corporation there is no connection or privity, nor for an assault by a trainman on one who had been a passenger but had left the train and ceased to be a passenger at the time of the assault.\u201d In the above quotations from the two text-writers are set forth what is substantially, as we understand it, the law in Illinois and other jurisdictions. (Oxford v. Peter, 28 Ill. 434, 435; Johanson v. Johnston Printing Co., 263 Ill. 236, 240; Illinois Cent. R. Co. v. Ross, 31 Ill. App. 170,182; Stephenson v. Southern Pac. Co., 93 Cal. 558, 561; Central Ry. Co. v. Peacock, 69 Md. 257, 262; Genga v. Director General of Railroads, 243 Mass. 101, 106; Kinnonen v. Great Northern R. Co., 34 N. Dak. 556, 565; Roberts v. Southern R. Co., 143 N. C. 176, 181; Turner v. American Dist. Telegraph & Messenger Co., 94 Conn. 707, 713; Bowen v. Illinois Cent. R. Co., 136 Fed. 306.) In the Johanson case, supra, our Supreme Court says: \u201cOutside of the scope of his employment the servant is as much a stranger to his master as any third person, and an act of the servant not done in the execution of services for which he was engaged cannot be regarded as the act of the master. If the servant step aside from his master\u2019s business for some purpose wholly disconnected with his employment the relation of master and servant is suspended. The act of the servant during such interval is not to be charged to his master.\u201d In the Bowen case, supra, decided by the U. S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit, the distinction is pointed out, as affecting a master\u2019s liability, between an act done by a servant during his employment and an act done by him within the scope of his employment, and attention is directed to the further distinction to be observed, as to. the liability of the master for the wrongful act of the servant, between* cases where the relation of carrier and passenger, or of a hotel keeper and his guest, exists, and cases where the master is the proprietor of a business house or railroad station and' the person injured by the servant\u2019s wrongful act comes upon the premises to transact some matter connected with the master\u2019s general business.\nIn view of the above authorities and the undisputed facts of the present case, we are of the opinion that the defendant railroad company is not liable for the injuries received by plaintiff in the manner shown, and that the circuit court committed errors of law in.refusing on defendant\u2019s motions to direct a verdict in its favor and in entering the judgment appealed from, or any judgment, against it. It seems clear to us from the evidence that the wrongful assault of the two gatemen was without the scope of their employment or duties, and, as said in the Genga case, supra, was committed by them \u201cin -a spirit of vindictiveness, or to gratify personal animosity or to carry out an independent purpose of their own\u201d; and that the judgment appealed from should be reversed without remanding the cause. Such action is proper where this Appellate Court reverses a judgment \u201cfor errors of law which cannot be obviated or cured on another trial.\u201d (Harty Bros. & Harty Co. v. Polakow, 237 Ill. 559, 567.)\nAccordingly the judgment of the circuit court will be reversed.\nReversed.\nBarnes, P. J., and Fitch, J., concur.", "type": "majority", "author": "Mr. Justice Gridley" } ], "attorneys": [ "Glennon, Cart, Walker & Murray, for appellant; Sidney C. Murray and Marvin A. Jersild, of counsel.", "Charles C. Spencer, Arthur A. House and Albert Schaffner, for appellee." ], "corrections": "", "head_matter": "Paul Horecker, Appellee, v. Pere Marquette Railroad Company, Appellant.\nGen. No. 30,141.\n1. Master and servant \u2014 liability of railroad for assault by gate-men. Where plaintiff went to depot with wife and child and an altercation arose between plaintiff and gatemen as to payment of half fare for child, but plaintiff obtained half-fare ticket and went to superintendent to make complaint, and later met the gatemen in the depot on their way to lunch, held that assault and battery by the gatemen was not within the scope of their employment or duties, and railroad was not liable. \u25a0\n2. Appeal and error \u2014 reversal without remanding. Judgment should be reversed without remanding cause where reversal is for errors of law which cannot he obviated or cured on another trial.\nAppeal by defendant from the Circuit Court of Cook county; . the Hon. John A. Swanson, Judge, presiding. Heard in the second division of this court for the first district at the March term, 1925.\nCertiorari denied by Supreme Court (making opinion final).\nReversed.\nOpinion filed October 6, 1925.\nGlennon, Cart, Walker & Murray, for appellant; Sidney C. Murray and Marvin A. Jersild, of counsel.\nCharles C. Spencer, Arthur A. House and Albert Schaffner, for appellee." }, "file_name": "0278-01", "first_page_order": 308, "last_page_order": 313 }