Citations
- 34 Cal. 594
Full opinion text
By the Court, Crockett, J. :
The plaintiff sues the defendant, a corporation owning a street railroad in San Francisco, to recover damages for having been ejected from one of the passenger cars of the defendant. The complaint avers that the defendant is a common carrier of passengers along certain streets of the city; that the plaintiff went upon one of the cars of defendant for the purpose of being transported along said route, and became a passenger thereon, being ready and willing to pay the proper fare; and that immediately after entering the car, “ the said defendant, without any lawful cause, and with great force and violence, and at a place other than a usual stopping place of said defendants for leaving passengers,” ejected the plaintiff from the car, and refused to transport her on said road, and greatly injured her in her person. This is the gravamen of the offense. There is no express averment that the act was wantonly or maliciously done, nor any allegation of special damage. The answer denies all the material averments of the complaint.
On the trial it appeared that the plaintiff' is a person of color, and being examined as a witness on her own behalf, her version of the transaction was, that on the occasion referred to she hailed -one of the defendant’s cars by the usual signal; that in obedience to the signal the car stopped; that she immediately proceeded to enter the car, and had gotten upon the platform and was holding to the iron railing round it, when the Conductor put his hand on her breast, and saying to her, “ Madam, you must wait for the next car,”' broke her hold on the car with Ms hand, and pushed her off the car; that she fell backward, and stepped upon her dress ■with such violence as to partially tear the skirt from the body; that the transaction occurred in the evening, after dark, and that the car was only partially filled with passengers ; that after being ejected she waited a few minutes until another car of the defendant came.along, on which she took passage without objection, and was transported to her place of destination. There was no proof that she suffered any persona] injury, or was in anywise damaged otherwise than as above stated.
The Conductor on the car in question was called as a witness for the defense, and gave a somewhat different version of the affair.
He testified that on being hailed by the plaintiff he stopped the car, and when she approached sufficiently near he told her she had better wait for the next car; that she did not get near enough to take hold of the car before it moved on; that she did not get on the step or platform, and he did not lay his hand upon her, and did not then know whether she was a white or colored woman.
This was the substance of the testimony on which the jury found a verdict for the plaintiff for seven hundred and fifty dollars.
The defendant moved the Court to charge the jury:
First—that they could not take into consideration the feelings, whether injured or not, of the plaintiff