[LETTERS FROM A LAWYER.]
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.