Natchez, Columbia & Mobile Railroad v. Lambert

Mayes, C. J., delivered the opinion of the court. In the absence of some good reason therefor, it was the duty of this railroad company to allow Mrs. Lambert to get off of its train at her proper depot at the very first opportunity that was presented. In this case Mrs. Lambert should have been landed at her proper depot before the train was carried into the yards, and because this was not done she is clearly entitled to nominal damages only. If it was necessary, in any case, for a passenger train to be pulled way beyond the depot and into the yards of the company, it is certainly the duty of the company to notify the passengers of its purpose to return them to their proper landing place, and if it fail to do this it is negligence, and any damage occasioned any passenger as the direct result makes the company liable therefor. In this ease, however, the main injury complained of was not the direct, proximate result of negligence of the company in carrying Mrs. Lambert by the depot, or failing to notify her of their purpose to return the train to the proper depot. It had been raining, and was raining at the time the train pulled into the yards. Mrs. Lambert knew this, and although she had four hours to wait after she reached the depot before the train she was to take over the Illinois Central Railroad to McComb City would arrive, she got out of her coach into [318] the rain aud slush, and undertook to walk back some two hundred or three hundred yards to the depot. It was getting off of the train and going into the rain that made her ill and caused the damage for which she sues. When she got off, the train had only been there á few minutes, and in twenty or thirty minutes the train was carried back to the depot for the purpose of allowing passengers to get off there. She had ample time to wait, and made no effort to have the train carry her back. She was at the terminus of the road, and knew that she could not be carried further. We do not think she was entitled to recover more than nominal damages, and the court should have so instructed. Reversed and remanded.