Democratic Sentinel, Volume 3, Number 6, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 March 1879 — The Rights of Passengers in Sleeping Cars. [ARTICLE]

The Rights of Passengers in Sleeping Cars.

In a Massachusetts case, decided last summer, a San Francisco passenger over the Lake Shore road bought a sleeping-car ticket at Cleveland for a berth in the car China. At Toledo he left the car for dinner, but first asked an employe in the car if he should leave his baggage, and would it be safe. The employe answered yes. But, when the traveler returned, the China had been switched off and the hand-baggage of the passengers carried into another car, which had been substituted for it. In this transfer the passenger’s valise was lost; he could never get any account of it; and he sued, not the Wagner Car Company who owned the China, but the Lake Shore Company. They were for referring him to the owners of the China, but the court decided against the defense. The traveler’s contract for transportation being with the Lake Shore Company, the fact that they had private arrangements with another corporation as to the terms for drawing a particular car, in which the traveler was not interested or concerned, made no difference in his right to sue them for negligent loss of his baggage. In a very recent case in Ohio the same ques tion arose as to personal injury. The traveler in a sleeping-car had his head bruised by the porter letting the upper berth fall upon it as he was arranging the car for the night. The blow affected the spine, and partial paralysis resulted. The injured person sued the carrying company, which sought to thnow the responsibility on the sleep-ing-car owners. And this case seems stronger than the other, for the negligence was in the manipulation of the berths, and had no direct relation to the transportation which the railroad company had undertaken. But the court held that the case could not be shifted upon the other corporation. The railroad company was responsible to travelers for its whole train, for all cars alike.— Neiu York Tribune.