Case ID: ohio-cc_18/html/0381-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

(First Circuit — Hamilton Co., O., Circuit Court
    Jan. Term, 1899.)
    Before King, Haynes and Parker, JJ. [Of the Sixth Circuit, sitting in the First Circuit. ]
    M. C. ANDERSON v. JAMES W. RAWLINGS.
    
      Civil Rights Act — Principals’ lialitity for agent’s refusal to admit colored man to theater—
    
    (1.) In a suit for damages under the Civil Rights Act for refusal to sell tickets to a theatre to a colored man, the petition must aver that the ticket seller in so refusing was acting within the scope of his authority in so doing.
    
      What petition must state—
    <(2,) Whether allegations and proof that the ticket seller was given discretion in such a matter would bind his principal? Quere.
    
    Error to the Court of Common Pleas of Hamilton county.
    The defendant in error sued the Fountain Square Theater Company, owners, and'M. O. Anderson, lessee, for $500 damages, claimed to have been forfeited to him under the civil rights act by reason of the refusal of the ticket seller at the Fountain Square Theater to sell to him tickets to the parquet of said theater, the reason given for said refusal being that all the seats in that part of the theater were sold, when, as a matter of fact, the seats were not all sold, and said refusal was because of his (Rawlings) race and color. The Fountain Square Theater Company were dismissed from the suit at the trial below, and a jury awarded Rawlings $200 damages, for which he was given judgment.
    
      
      Shay & Cogan, for M. C. Anderson.
    
      George H. Jackson, for Rawlings.
    Parker, J; King, P. J., and Haynes, J., concur.
   The judgment in this case is reversed on the ground that the petition fails to state a cause of action against the plaintiff in error in this, that it contains no averment that plaintiff in error did the act complained of, or that the ticket agent was authorized by plaintiff in error to do such act, or that he was acting within the scope of his authority therein —i. e,, in making the unlawful discrimination complained, of.

Whether allegation and proof that the ticket agent was. given authority to exercise his own discretion in selling or refusing to sell tickets to persons applying therefor would be sufficient to charge the principal with liability for such act as that complained of, we do not decide.