PART VIII.
The Temple.
My dear Dorothy,—Nothing seems to puzzle the ordinary public so much as the law of omnibus travelling, and in one of two cases which I saw reported the other day, the worthy County Court judge seems, if he were correctly reported, to have made a slip and nonsuited a plaintiff with a good cause of action. I am inclined to think, however, that it was the reporter who made the slip and not the judge, by omitting an important point in the case which had escaped his notice, and I think I can pretty well guess what that point was.
As both the actions arose out of incidents of everyday occurrence, which might happen to anyone, I will here relate them for your benefit.
The first case was one in which a lady claimed damages from an omnibus company—I think it was the London General, but that is a detail—on account of injuries received through the misconduct of the conductor. It appears that there had been a previous altercation between the parties, and that when the lady rose to go out, he pushed her off the step and started the bus, so that the lady fell down and injured her leg.
The judge very properly nonsuited the plaintiff, because it is not part of an omnibus conductor’s duties to violently push people off his omnibus; such behaviour on his part was something outside of his ordinary duties as a servant of the Company. The lady therefore had no cause of action against the Company; her remedy was against the conductor for the assault.
This may seem to you, my dear Dorothy, to be a very unsatisfactory state of affairs, but so it is, and it seems to me to be good sense and good law, although I admit that an action against a wealthy omnibus company and one against a poor conductor are not quite the same thing.
In the other case a lady brought an action against an omnibus company to recover the value of a dress, which she stated had been damaged owing to her falling into the mud through the negligence or carelessness of the conductor in starting the omnibus before she had taken her seat.
According to the report, as I read it, she was going upstairs, but before she got to the top, the conductor, without giving her any warning, rang his bell, and the omnibus started with a jerk, which threw her off into the mud and spoilt her dress.
Now if these had been the only facts in the case, I should have said that this lady was entitled to recover the value of her damaged costume from the omnibus company, because it is undoubtedly part of the conductor’s duties to ring his bell and stop to take up and set down passengers, and if a passenger is going outside he ought not to start the omnibus until the passenger has secured his seat, or without giving him warning or taking other reasonable means to see that he gets his seat in safety.
But in this also the plaintiff was nonsuited, and, although it did not appear so in the report, the learned judge must have thought that there was some negligence on the part of the lady. Possibly she had got on to the omnibus whilst it was in motion, as so many ladies do nowadays. This would at once put her out of court. If there had not been contributory negligence of some kind, this lady would have won her case.
If you meet with an accident through getting on or off an omnibus whilst it is in motion, you contribute to the accident in not ordering the conductor to stop, and you have only yourself to blame; if, however, you had ordered the conductor to stop and he had neglected or refused to do so, you would probably succeed in an action against the company.
Nowadays, when nearly all the omnibus companies issue tickets, you are not bound to show your tickets whenever they are demanded by a conductor or inspector, but it is wiser to do so because the absence of a ticket will generally be regarded by the magistrate as evidence of your not having paid your fare, and unless you have any friends travelling with you who are ready to come forward and swear that they saw you purchase a ticket, you will very likely be fined and have to pay costs as well. If you are travelling in a train or a tram, you are bound to produce and deliver up your ticket whenever it is demanded by a servant of the company, the railway and the tramway companies having special powers to make bye-laws to this effect.
The muzzling orders still remain in force for the Metropolis, although in the country the dogs are freed of their muzzles.
A man who was summoned the other day for allowing his dog to run about unmuzzled, tried to make a point by pleading that he did not permit the dog to run about unmuzzled. Whenever he took the dog out he always put his muzzle on, but on this occasion the dog had gone out without his permission. However, the magistrate fined him all the same, just as he did
Your affectionate cousin,
Bob Briefless.