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popular violence, and expose him to great personal danger at the destination to which he desired to be carried, the carrier may refuse to carry such person.17 So the carrier may exclude and deny transportation to any person who, on account of some physical or mental disability, will be likely, if accepted as a passenger, to become a burden upon his fellow passengers or to require extra attention from the carrier. But inasmuch as experience has shown that many persons, seemingly incapacitated by physical disability, are, in truth, perfectly competent to travel alone, the courts, in the interest of the traveling public, have modified the rigor and limited the otherwise universal application of the rule by providing that any person desiring transportation shall be entitled to passage upon payment of the fare, notwithstanding his seeming incapacity, if, as a matter of fact, he is competent to travel alone without requiring other care than that which the law requires the carrier to bestow upon all his passengers alike, and his condition is such that the agent of the carrier, acting as a person of ordinary prudence, may reasonably infer that he is able to care for himself; and if, in any manner, proof of the capacity of the passenger to travel alone be brought to the knowledge of the carrier's agent, the carrier will be liable in damages if such

17. This last proposition was asserted by the court in the case of Pearson v. Duane, 4 Wall. 605. The plaintiff had been expelled from the city of San Francisco by what was known as a vigilance committee, with orders not to return, and sought a passage back to that place by the vessel of which the defendant was the commander. Having learned the circumstances of his expulsion, the defendant refused, after the passage had been commenced, to carry him on, and transferred him to another vessel and sent him back to the place at which he had taken his passage on the defendant's vessel. The court,

while admitting the obligation of passenger carriers, as a general rule, to receive and carry all who offered, stated that there were, nevertheless, exceptions to this rule, instancing the drunkenness, bad character or insanity of the person as affording sufficient reasons for such refusal; and expressed the opinion that, under the circumstances of the case, the defendant could well have refused a passage to the libelant if, in his opinion, his return to San Francisco would have tended to promote further difficulty there and would have endangered the life of the passenger.

person is excluded from his vehicles.18 So if a person, who on account of some physical or mental disability is unable to care for himself, provides assistance for that purpose, the carrier cannot rightfully refuse to accept him as a passenger.

Sec. 967. (§ 540.) Same subject-Right to exclude the blind. "Primarily the affliction of blindness unfits every person for safe travel by railway, if unaccompanied. No blind person without previous experience could possibly accommodate himself to the many exigencies incident to travel by railroad, or guard himself against peril in boarding and alighting from trains, changing from one train to another, or threading his way in safety across the railway tracks at crowded stations. Hence the rule which provides that every blind person is presumed to be, in the absence of proof of experience, unfit to travel alone, is not unreasonable. Nor . . . (is) . . . such a regulation a hardship upon the persons afflicted with blindness or other disabling physical infirmity. It is rather a safeguard thrown around them for their own protection. Therefore, when a blind person applies to purchase a ticket, being himself unknown to the agent, and that ticket is refused, the carrier is not liable by this act alone to be muleted in damages; but, as before indicated, if the agent of the carrier knows of his personal knowledge of the competency to travel of the particular person, or if the fact of such ability is made known to him in any manner, and he still persists wantonly and arbitrarily in his refusal to sell the person desiring passage a ticket, the carrier may be made to respond in damages for his oppressive act. And it is the duty of the agent of the carrier to listen to the explanation of the person desiring to purchase

In the absence of a usage per- N. J. Law, 67, 48 L. R. A. 744; mitting passengers to carry small s. c. 65 N. J. Law 228, 47 Atl. packages of merchandise with Rep. 422. them into the cars, a carrier may refuse to admit a person to its cars who undertakes to carry with him such articles. Runyan 17. Railroad Co., 44 Atl. Rep. 985, 64

18. Zackery v. Railroad Co., 74 Miss. 520, 21 So. Rep. 246, 36 L. R. A. 546, 60 Am. St. Rep. 529; id. 75 Miss. 751, 23 So. Rep. 435, 41 L. R. A. 385, 65 Am. St. Rep.

a ticket, and judge of his competency in the light of the facts then made known to him, and the question of the reasonableness or unreasonableness of his refusal is one of fact to be submitted to the jury, should litigation arise; and if it should appear that such refusal was reasonable under the circumstances as they then existed to the knowledge of the agent, the carrier would not be liable to damages; but, as in every other case, if it should develop that his action was caused by wantonness or a desire to arbitrarily injure, humiliate, or oppress the proposed passenger by such action, the carrier would be responsible, and would be liable both to compensatory and punitive damages. "19

Sec. 968. Same subject-Right to exclude the insane.-The carrier cannot absolutely refuse transportation in all cases to insane persons, but he may always insist that they be properly attended, safely guarded, and securely restrained. And even when such precautions have been taken the carrier may refuse to receive an insane person who exhibits signs of violence which indicate that his presence and conduct would tend to the manifest annoyance of others. Where, however, it becomes essential to transport one who, though only violent and noisy, is not responsible for his actions and may endanger the safety or interfere with the comfort of other travelers, the carrier is entitled to seasonable notice in order that he may make proper arrangements for such purpose.20

Sec. 969. Same subject-Right to exclude intoxicated persons. The carrier has a right to refuse admittance to his ve

617; Railroad Co. v. Smith, 85 Miss. 349, 37 So. Rep. 643, 70 L. R. A. 642.

19. Railroad Co. v. Smith, 85 Miss. 349, 37 So. Rep. 643, 70 L. R A. 642; Zackery v. Railroad Co., 74 Miss. 520, 21 So. Rep. 246, 36 I. R. A. 546, 60 Am. St. Rep. 529; id. 75 Miss. 746, 23 So. Rep. 435, 41 L. R. A. 385, 65 Am. St. Rep. 617.

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hicles of a person who is so intoxicated as to be dangerous or annoying, both on account of the danger of injury to him, and his liability to become a nuisance to other passengers ;21 but if he has been accepted as a passenger, he is entitled to be carried with the same care as other passengers, and cannot be ejected so long as he demeans himself peacefully and properly.22

Sec. 970. Same subject-Right to exclude persons who interfere with the interests or business of the carrier.-Carriers have the right, as a common incident to their right of property, to consult and provide for their own interests in the management of their vehicles. They are consequently not bound to accept as passengers those whose object is to interfere with their interests or patronage so as to make the business less lucrative to them.23 And while a regulation adopted by the carrier giving to one person the exclusive right to solicit on its vehicles the transfer business of its passengers will be valid,24 the right to be transported as a passenger cannot be denied to a person, who stands ready to pay his fare, merely because he does something which the carrier considers detrimental to its business at other times and places than on its vehicle.25

21. Story v. Railroad Co., 133 N. C. 59, 45 S. E. Rep. 349; Freedcn v. Railroad Co., 48 N. Y. Supp. 584, 24 App. Div. 306.

In an action for forcible ejection from defendant's car, a rule of defendant requiring conductors not to allow intoxicated persons to ride on the car is not admissible, where it is not claimed on the trial that plaintiff was intoxicated, but it appears that he was afflicted with St. Vitus dance which produced involuntary motions somewhat resembling those of an intoxicated person. Regner v. Rail

road Co., 26 N. Y. Supp. 625, 74 Hun, 202.

22. Milliman v. The Railroad, 66 N. Y. 642; Putnam v. The Railroad, 55 id. 108.

23. Jencks v. Coleman, 2 Sumner, 221.

24. Lewis v. Railway Co., (Tex. Civ. App.) 81 S. W. Rep. 111.

25. This has been held with reference to a “ticket scalper" who trafficked in the carrier's tickets at other times and places than on the train. Ford v. Railroad Co., 110 La. 414, 34 So. Rep. 585.

Sec. 971. (§ 541a.) Duty and liability as to carrying prisoners. As has been seen, a carrier is not liable as for a conversion, where in good faith he receives goods from a person in apparent lawful possession and control of them, and, having carried them to their destination, redelivers them to such person, although the latter was not the owner of the goods and had no authority to deliver them for carriage.26 So it has been held that where one, assuming to be an officer, represents himself as such to the conductor of a railroad train, and offers to put upon the train as a passenger a person whom he claims to have lawfully arrested for crime, the conductor is not required to inquire into the cause of the arrest and the authority of the officer, but is justified in taking such prisoner in good faith upon the train, and neither he nor the company is guilty of any wrongful act in so doing.27

7. Separation of passengers for sex, color, etc.

Sec. 972. (§ 542.) Passengers may be separated according to sex, character, etc.-Color discriminations. But though no one who may offer himself to be carried can be refused by the carrier if he be a fit person and in a fit condition to be carried, yet if the conveyance employed by him is adapted to the carriage of passengers separated into different classes, according to the fare which may be charged, the character of the accommodations afforded, or of the persons to be carried, the carrier may so divide them; and any regulation he may make confining those of one class to the part of the conveyance provided for it, and interdicting intrusions by them into that provided for another, will not be regarded as unreasonable if made in good faith for the better accommodation and convenience of the passengers. By such regulations the carrier is enable to graduate his prices for the carriage, so that those who can afford or prefer to pay for the more expensive accommodations avoid the annoyances and discomforts which would 26. Ante, 148.

27. Jackson v. Railway Co., 87 Mo. 422.

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