## Facts

- Elizabeth S. Gillespie boarded a streetcar operated by Brooklyn Heights Railroad Company.
- She tendered twenty-five cents for a five-cent fare and a transfer; company practice permitted acceptance of a quarter and making change.
- The conductor, distracted before completing the transaction, later refused to provide Gillespie’s transfer and twenty cents in change.
- In the presence of other passengers, the conductor loudly and repeatedly accused Gillespie of dishonesty and called her a “deadbeat” and “swindler.”
- Gillespie sued to recover the twenty-cent overcharge and compensatory damages for humiliation, injury to feelings, and mental suffering caused by the conductor’s conduct.

## Issues

1. Whether a common carrier is liable in compensatory damages for a passenger’s humiliation and mental suffering caused by a conductor’s abusive, public accusations made while collecting fare and providing change and a transfer.
2. Whether damages for injured feelings may be recovered without physical injury when the wrongful conduct occurs in connection with performance of the carriage undertaking.

## Decision

- The Court of Appeals reversed the judgment that limited recovery to twenty cents and ordered a new trial.
- The court held the carrier could be liable for compensatory damages for humiliation and injury to feelings resulting from the conductor’s wrongful conduct.
- The conductor’s actions occurred in the course of performing carrier duties (fare collection and issuance of change/transfer), making the carrier vicariously liable.

## Legal Principles

- A common carrier of passengers owes a duty not only to transport safely but to treat passengers with civility and protect them from insults and indignities by its employees while performing carrier functions.
- When a carrier’s employee, acting within the scope of employment and in connection with the carriage service, wrongfully insults or humiliates a passenger, the carrier may be liable for compensatory damages for mental suffering and wounded feelings, even absent physical injury.
- Although the dispute involved fare and change, the actionable wrong was not limited to a minor pecuniary breach; the carrier’s duty includes protection of passenger dignity during performance of the carriage service.

## Conclusion

The court ruled that a passenger may seek compensatory damages for humiliation and mental suffering caused by a conductor’s public, insulting accusations made during fare-related duties, and it ordered a new trial so a jury could consider such damages beyond the twenty-cent overcharge.


Gillespie v. Brooklyn Heights R.R. Co., 178 N.Y. 347, 70 N.E. 857 (N.Y. 1904)