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part of the defendant to the plaintiff, and there could be no 
liability for negligence, and the nonsuit was right. 
Appeal dismissed. 
Read also: TODD v. FLIGHT, Court of Common Pleas. 1860. 9 
C.B. N.S. 377 

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[EDITOR'S NOTE: "If in Lane v. Cox no duty was created towards 
the plaintiff by the letting of the house in a dilapidated 
condition, what difference could it have made if the landlord 
had contracted with the tenant to keep it in repair?" So asked 
Collins, M.R., in Cavalier v. Pope (74 L.J.R., K.B. at p. 862); 
a case where the landlord had thus contracted, and the tenant's 
wife had been injured through the landlord's failing to repair.] 

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[4] Cobb V. The Great Western Railway Company. COURT OF APPEAL. 
1893. L.R [1893] 1 Q.B. 459. 
And also that this breach was the proximate cause of the 
Damage. 
APPEAL of plaintiff from judgment of a Divisional Court (Day and 
Collins, JJ) on a point of law raised by the pleadings, which 
had been ordered to be disposed of before the trial; under Order 
xxv., r. 2.
The point of law was in substance whether the statement of claim 
disclosed any cause of action. 
The statement of claim was as follows:- 
1. On May 6, 1892, the plaintiff was received by the defendant 
company as a passenger, to be carried on defendants' railway by 
the 8.15 p.m. passenger train from Shrewsbury to Birmingham, for 
reward to the defendant company then paid by the plaintiff. 
2. The said train, in the course of its journey, stopped at 
Wellington, and the plaintiff was there, while in the defendant 
company's railway carriage on the journey aforesaid, robbed by a 
gang of men, who there entered the said carriage, of the sum of 

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£89. 1s., consisting of gold and silver and notes, which the 
plaintiff was then carrying in his pocket. The said gang of men 
numbered about sixteen. 
3. The plaintiff forthwith complained of having been robbed as 
aforesaid to the defendant company's station-master; but the 
said station-master refused to detain the train to permit the 
plaintiff to give the said men into custody and have them 
searched. 
4. It is the duty of the said station-master, as the defendant 
company's servant, to give the signal for the said train to be 
started; and, immediately upon plaintiff's complaint being made 
to him, he negligently and improperly, (and in breach of the 
duty owed by the defendant company to the plaintiff, as a 
passenger on their line, to protect him in person and property, 
and to oppose no obstacle to his recovering the property, 
whereof he had while on their line been wrongfully deprived), 
gave the signal for the said train to leave, and it left 
accordingly, and the plaintiff was thereby prevented, without 
any negligence on his part, from having the said men searched 
and his aforesaid property recovered. There was in and about the 
said station at the time of the robbery, as the said station-
master well knew, a large force of police ready and willing to 
effect the said arrest for the plaintiff, and to search those 
arrested; but they were prevented from doing so by the action of 
the defendant company's servant in immediately starting the said 

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train. The said £89. 1s. was still in the aforesaid compartment 
of the carriage at the time when the plaintiff complained to the 
said station-master, and might and would then have been 
recovered, had he afforded time for the necessary search. 
5. The defendant company was negligent in permitting the said 
carriage to be overcrowded, and so facilitating the hustling and 
robbing of the plaintiff. The said compartment of the carriage 
plaintiff was in was constructed to carry ten passengers, and 
the defendant company caused or permitted the said gang of 
sixteen men to enter it, after plaintiff was already seated in 
the said compartment. 
6. The plaintiff has since prosecuted to conviction two of the 
aforesaid gang of sixteen men who robbed him (being all that 
have as yet been identified). 
7. The plaintiff has by reason of the aforesaid negligence of 
the defendant company wholly lost the said £89. 1s. 
The Divisional Court held that the statement of claim disclosed 
no cause of action. 
R.W. Harper, for the plaintiff. It is the duty of a railway 
company towards a passenger to use due care for the safety of 
his person, and of the property which he has about him. Upon the 
statement of claim it appears that the defendants refused and 

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neglected to give reasonable facilities for the recovery of the 
plaintiff's property which had been stolen while he was in their 
carriage. It was the duty of the defendants to give the 
plaintiff reasonable opportunity of having the carriage and the 
thieves searched and recovering his property. [He cited on this 
point the judgment of Chalmers, J., in
New Orleans, St Louis, and Chicago Ry. Co. v. Burke.
36
[LORD ESHER, M.R. The facts in that case were altogether 
different. There the question was as to the duty of the company 
to protect a passenger who was being assaulted by fellow-
passengers. There was no question in the present case of 
interfering at the time to prevent violence or robbery. The 
robbery was over, and the question is as to the existence of a 
subsequent duty to give facilities for arresting or searching 
the thieves. 
BOWEN, L.J. It is not specifically alleged in the statement of 
claim that the plaintiff ever told the station-master that he 
desired to give anybody in charge or to have anybody searched. 
His complaint in reality seems to be that the station-master did 
not delay the train to give him an opportunity of seeing what 
course he would take.] 
By starting the train the station-master facilitated the escape 
of the thieves with the stolen property. 
36
. 
24 American Reports, 689. 

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Secondly, it was negligence on the part of the defendants to 
allow the carriage to be overcrowded; and the statement of claim 
alleges, and, on this argument, it must be taken to be the fact, 
that the result of such negligence was that the plaintiff was 
robbed of his property.... 
LORD ESHER, M.R. ... It must be taken that the robbery was not 
due to any negligence of the defendants; it is not alleged that 
the plaintiff was being ill-used or assaulted in the train, and 
that, that fact being made known to the defendants' servants, 
they did not interfere to protect him. That would be a different 
case. Whatever was done to him was done and over; the robbery 
was finished when he complained to the station-master. The 
station-master was not, so far as appears from the statement of 
claim, asked to have the carriage or the men in it searched.
What, upon the facts as stated, I should infer the plaintiff 
really wanted was that the train and the other passengers in it 
should be detained whilst the complaint of the plaintiff was 
being inquired into by the police. Was this part of the 
obligation imposed upon the company by their contract to carry 
the plaintiff safely? It seems to me to have nothing to do with 
that contract, and to be wholly outside of it. I do not think 
that, on the facts as stated, it is shewn that there was any 
obligation imposed on the station-master, as the servant of the 
company, to detain the train. If there was no obligation imposed 
on the company which they have broken or negligently performed, 

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then it follows that there is no cause of action. Therefore, so 
far, I think that the plaintiff has no cause of action. 
With regard to the second head of complaint, there was, 
according to the statement of claim, a breach of duty. It was 
the duty of the defendants not to allow their carriage to be 
overcrowded. But then it is necessary to shew that the alleged 
damage was such as would naturally and ordinarily result from 
such breach of duty. It cannot be considered as the probable and 
ordinary result of allowing a compartment of a railway carriage 
to be overcrowded that a passenger should be robbed by his 
fellow-passengers. The damage alleged is too remote. Therefore, 
upon the facts, as alleged by the statement of claim, I think 
that no cause of action is shewn. 
Appeal dismissed. 
[EDITOR'S NOTE. See the further proceedings in the House of 
Lords, L.R [1894] A.C. 419.] 

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