Pollard v. Railroad Co.

1. A judgment in assumpsit, brought by a husband and wife, on a contract by a carrier of passengers to carry her safely, for injuries to her while being carried, is a bar to another action of assumpsit on the same contract, by the husband alone, to recover for the same injuries. 2. A different rule prevails when the action is in tort against the carrier for a breach of his public duty, except, perhaps, in States where, as in New Jersey, the husband, in such an action, may by statute add claims in his own right to those of his wife.

Error to the Circuit Court of the United States for the District of New Jersey. This was an action of assumpsit by Jerome B. Pollard, a citizen of Illinois, against the New Jersey Railroad and Transportation Company, a general carrier of passengers, for damages sustained by him in consequence of an injury to his wife, Sarah H. Pollard, caused by the negligence of,, the defendant while she was a passenger on its road, having a tifiket from New York to Chicago, purchased for her by her husband. The defendant, among other defences, pleaded a former recovery, setting out the record of a judgment in assumpsit in a former action in the same court, in which said Pollard and wife were plaintiffs' and said company was defendant. The plea then sets out the contract for the transportation of said Sarah, the breach thereof and the judgment thereon, and avers that, before this writ was signed, said judgment was recovered by the said plaintiffs ; that the promises and undertakings for the non-performance of which said judgment was recovered are the same promises and undertakings mentioned in the declaration in this action and none other; that said judgment still remains in full force, not having been reversed. To this plea the plaintiff demurred. The demurrer having been overruled and judgment rendered for the defendant, Pollard sued 'out this writ of error.