Court Opinion

ID: 9582552
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 22:28:37.750181+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:37:56.642451
License: Public Domain

Russell, Judge.
With some difficulty the allegations of the pleadings may be construed to infer that the plaintiff was a customer in the defendant’s store; that on October 6 a check with the plaintiff’s name signed to it which according to the contention of the manager of the store was presented and cashed by plaintiff’s son at a time when plaintiff was present in the store was returned for insufficient funds, and that the next time the plaintiff came into the store the manager asked her whether she wrote the check. She did not at first deny writing the check, but only said she did not cash it. He then asked her whether she had money in the bank and she agreed that she did not have money in the bank, or at least not in an account which would have covered the check in question: “No, I only write personal checks.” The manager then said plaintiff was in the store when he cashed the check, and the plaintiff again evaded a direct denial, according to her quoted words, and said merely that she was not “in the store with my son October 6,” the date of the check. Thus, the plaintiff’s own account of the conversation puts her in an ambiguous position of appearing to evade forthright answers to questions naturally raised by the fact that the check had not been honored in the ordinary course of business by the drawee. It is hard to determine whether the plaintiff intended for the manager to understand that the check was a forgery, or that she had written the check but had not cashed it. She had not made her position clear. The manager then told her he intended to have the signature on the check compared with the signature of the maker on file at the bank. Only this last sentence can be made the subject of inquiry, because the plaintiff freely admitted she had no funds in the bank out of which the check could be paid. Since she had refused to state whether she did in fact write the check in answer to his question, the store manager’s statement that he would find out by *157having a comparison oí signatures made seems a natural reaction under the circumstances.
This conversation is alleged to give rise to a right oí action because it was a “breach of [plaintiff’s] freedom, liberty, movement, privacy, and was an unlawful arrest.” The petition does not allege a cause of action for unlawful arrest because no unlawful detention is alleged. Westberry v. Clanton, 136 Ga. 795 (72 SE 238).
It does not allege either that the words spoken were per se defamatory, or that they were subject to two meanings, one of which was intended by way of innuendo to be defamatory, nor does it allege that the defendant corporation directed or authorized its agent to speak the words in question. The petition hence does not set forth a cause of action for a breach of duty to refrain from slandering the plaintiff or for slandering her.
Neither is an actionable violation of the right of privacy alleged. “Personal liberty includes not only freedom from physical restraint, but also the right 'to be let alone’, to determine one’s mode of life, whether it shall be a life of publicity or of privacy, and to order one’s life and manage one’s affairs in a manner that may be most agreeable to him so long as he does not violate the rights of others or of the public.” Pavesich v. New England Life Ins. Co., 122 Ga. 190 (5) (50 SE 68, 69 LRA 101, 106 ASR 104, 2 AC 561); Gouldman-Taber Pontiac, Inc. v. Zerbst, 213 Ga. 682 (2) (100 SE2d 881). It was said in Zerbst that one who seeks employment, and who obtains credit, and who trades with the proprietor of an automobile repair shop, naturally exposes herself to the ordinary hazards of life, including the fact that even though she rightfully refuses to pay a bill the creditor may complain to her employer, and that this is no invasion of privacy. Likewise, one who trades in a retail store, and whose name is signed to a check returned for insufficient funds, is exposed to questioning about the check as one of the normal hazards of modern mercantile trading, whether or not she wrote the check in the first instance, and particularly if the check was cashed by a member of her family. No “right of privacy” has been invaded.
The duty of a proprietor to exercise ordinary care to prevent *158injury to an invitee on his premises arises when “there is any reasonable apprehension of danger to such a customer.” Moone v. Smith, 6 Ga. App. 649 (1) (65 SE 712), a case cited by the plaintiff in error but involving a physical injury to a customer in the midst of a general fight in the establishment, and not otherwise applicable. The duty of the proprietor may rest on either of two principles. It may itself be negligent by ordering its employee to do something which injures the plaintiff or by negligently hiring an employee after such characteristics become known to it. No such facts are alleged here; the defendant is liable, if at all, under the doctrine of respondeat superior. “Every person shall be liable for torts committed by his wife, his child, or his servant, by his command or in the prosecution and within the scope of his business, whether the same shall be by negligence or voluntary.” Code § 105-108; Southern R. Co. v. Morrison, 105 Ga. 543, 547 (31 SE 564). So considering the case we must ignore the fact that the defendant is a proprietor and consider the allegations as though suit had been filed against the employee in his individual capacity, or against any private person where the same confusion obtained concerning the authorship of the check. A, who has cashed a check with B’s name on it and had it returned for lack of funds, informs B in effect that he understands B to maintain the check is a forgery; that he, A, does not believe it is a forgery, and that he is going to take it down to the bank and have the signatures compared. He does this in the vicinity of other people who may have overheard the conversation, and who may form the conclusion therefrom that in B’s opinion A is the maker of the check, or at least that B is not convinced that A is not the maker of the check. A considers this insulting. It is not, however, as insulting as to say to a woman: “I am talking to old lady Atkinson, God damn you,” Atkinson v. Bibb Mfg. Co., 50 Ga. App. 434 (178 SE 537), or stating to another in the presence of the plaintiffs that “he was going to kill the God damn sons of bitches,” Buice v. Citizens &c. Nat. Bank, 71 Ga. App. 563 (31 SE2d 414). “No Georgia cases are cited and we have been able to find none which go so far as to hold that abusing, insulting, harrowing and cursing an individual constitutes a wrong cognizable under *159the law of torts in the State of Georgia.” Johnson v. General Motors Acceptance Corp., 228 F2d 104. Since no actionable tort was committed such that the plaintiff might recover from the speaker, he cannot recover against the employer. Miller v. Friedman’s Jewelers, 107 Ga. App. 841 (131 SE2d 663). Every cited case the court has examined in which recovery has been allowed rests on the theory that the proprietor is liable for the tortious misconduct of the employee, not on conduct falling short of a tort. In Colonial Stores, Inc. v. Coker, 74 Ga. App. 264 (39 SE2d 429) and similar cases the tort might be one for which the employer was not itself liable as a corporation, but it was a tort for which the employee could have been sued directly regardless of the duty of the proprietor. No case has gone so far as to hold that the employer may be liable for conduct of the employee which is not, as to the latter, cognizable as a breach of a private duty owing the plaintiff by the actor, no negligence being shown as against the employer itself.
Cases cited to our attention on the question of the duty of a proprietor to protect others against insults from company employees include Southern R. Co. v. Chambers, 126 Ga. 404 (4) (55 SE 37, 7 LRA (NS) 926); Hillman v. Georgia R. & Bkg. Co., 126 Ga. 814 (56 SE 68, 8 AC 222); Cole v. Atlanta & West Point R. Co., 102 Ga. 474 (31 SE 107) and others involving railroad or telegraph companies. We do not of course make a broad decision that insults by employees are not actionable; but, in consideration of the problem, both the public interest with which the defendant is invested and the wilful character of the act committed against the plaintiff must be considered. As to the former, the distinction was made the basis of the holding in Dunn v. Western Union Tel. Co., 2 Ga. App. 845, 849 (59 SE 189): “A telegraph company is a private corporation performing a public duty; and whether it is a common carrier, a bailee, or a person engaged in business sui generis, is immaterial. It is a public-service company, one engaged in a business of such nature as to clearly distinguish it from those purely private persons and corporations who may conduct their own business in their own way. All such corporations, on account of the interest which the public has in the manner in which their busi*160ness is conducted as well as on account of the special franchises enjoyed by them, must observe certain rules of dealing with the public.” After pointing out that government imposes on institutions impressed with a public interest the duty of acting impartially to all, Judge Powell adds (p. 851), “The fact that the right of respectful treatment, while attempting to do business with a public-service company, follows as the natural sequence from the right to be served impartially and at all reasonable times, seems to render the citation of authority as to the existence of this right of respectful treatment unnecessary.” It follows that cases involving this class of corporations stand within different parameters from those which involve an ordinary proprietorship.
The petition also differs from Southern Grocery Stores, Inc. v. Keys, 70 Ga. App. 473 (28 SE2d 581) and like cases which allege the commission of a tort (slander) by the use of words with an obvious defamatory meaning, and from cases like Hazelrigs v. High Co., 49 Ga. App. 866 (1) (176 SE 814), where the act is alleged to be wilful and wanton rather than merely negligent.
“In the absence of allegations of physical injury or of malicious, wanton, voluntary and intentional wrong, the plaintiff is not entitled to recover for mental pain and suffering, nervousness, upset, anxiety, embarassment and humiliation.” Shook v. Southern R. Co., 101 Ga. App. 128 (113 SE2d 155). See also Stephens v. Waits, 53 Ga. App. 44 (184 SE 781) and citations.
The petition alleges neither misconduct amounting to a tort nor a wilful and intentional attempt to humiliate and embarrass the plaintiff, and damages are sought for mental suffering only. It follows that no cause of action is set out.

Judgment affirmed.

Nichols, P. J., Frankum, Jordan and Pannell, JJ., concur. Eberhardt, J., concurs specially. Bell, P. J., and Hall, J., concur with this special concurrence. Felton, C. J., dissents.