Case ID: h-j_1/html/0004-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Chase, Ch. J.—", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

GENERAL COURT, (E. S.)
    APRIL TERM, 1800.
    Cornfute vs. Dale
    Trespass will not lie by a master for an assault & batter on his slave unless it be attended with a loss of service.
    Tkis was an action of trespass for an assault and 7 battery committed by the defendant on the plaintiff's J * * <*1« SM,t.
    The question was, Whether such an action was maintainable?
    
      Bullitt, for the plaintiff, contended,
    that although no case was tobe found in the hooks directly in point, slavery not being known in England, yet upon the principle of its being a violation of the plaintiff’s properly, in which .case, generally speaking, an action of trespass is supportable at common law, this action ought to be sustained. That it was not essential to prove a loss of service in order to support such an action, ise cited Barnes’s Notes, 452, where it was decided, that an action of trespass might be supported for beating the plaintiff’s horse; and 6 Jnstr. Cler. 622, 633, (which cites 2 Lutxv. 1481, as S. C„) that one may justify an assault and battery where the plaintiff had assaulted and beaten his horse. He also cited 20 Vi-
      
      ner 454, pi. 8, (which cites Bro. Mr. Tresp. pi. 442, the case in the year book of 20 U. mi. ch. 5,) That a lord might have had an action for the battery of his villein; which is founded on this principle — that as the villein could not support an action, the injury would be without redress unless the lord could. But not so where, the servant could support an action, because then the defendant would be, liable to be doubly charged, which ought not to be, and therefore in such case the master can support an action only for his special injury, to wit, loss of service,
    He further observed, that he had been applied to some years before, by Colonel Lloyd, to bring an action against a person for beating one of his slaves; that he at first expressed to him his doubt whether the action lay in such case, and that Colonel Lloyd obtained the late Mr. Jenings’s written opinion, which he shewed to him, and which was to this purpose: — That he had brought such actions himself, and had often known them brought in the provincial court, Upon which, Mr. Bullitt said, he brought the action for Col. Lloyd, and no objection to it of that kind was taken.
    
      J. Bayly, contra, for the defendant,
    cited 2 Stra. 872, Slater vs. Swann, where Lord Ch. J. Raymond said, “that an assault on a horse was no cause of action, unless accompanied with a special damage.”
    That if the present action could be sustained, a master might bring an action for a mere assault on his slave, or for slandering his slave,
    The case was postponed for further consideration until the nest day, when judgment was entered for the defendant.
   Chase, Ch. J.—

Assigned, among other reasons-for the decision in this case, that the action did not lie, because there was not a reciprocity of action, no action being maintainable against a master for an assault and battery committed by his slave; and that the injury to the slave was not dispunishable, it being indictable as an offence, and that without an injury or wrong to the master, no action could be sustained.