Court Opinion

ID: 9808480
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 20:39:19.593996+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:13:41.888217
License: Public Domain

Douolas, J.,
concurring: — While I concur in the judgment of the Court, I can not concur in the possible inference that a private corporation can not be guilty of libel; nor do I see any material difference in that respect between a private and quasi public corporation. It is true the latter owes to the public certain special duties, such for instance as the protection of its passengers by a common carrier; but these duties and consequent liabilities come under an entirely different principle. I think this distinction is clearly drawn, and the essential principles fully recognized, in Hussey v. Railroad, 98 N. C., 34, and in White v. Railroad, 115 N. C., 631, 636. The citation in the opinion of the Court from State v. Railroad, 23 N. J. Law, 369, cited with approval in Denver R. Co. v. Harris, 122 U. S., 597, 608; Hussey v. Railroad, supra, and White v. Railroad, supra, lays down the general principle applicable to all corporations, that a corporation is civilly liable, precisely as a natural person, for torts committed by its servants or agents by its authority, express or implied. It seems to me there must be at least implied authority for all acts done by an agent “within the course and scope of his employment.” Eor this reason I am not prepared to say that it was error in the court below to charge that “a corporation is responsible for' slanderous words uttered by its agent in the course and scope of such agent’s employment and in aid of the company’s in*105terest.” I see no error in it, as far as it goes. If a corporation or individual sbonld place in the bands of an agent a claim for collection, with a false statement showing the alleged debtor guilty of embezzlement, and such agent should, on the authority of such statement, charge the debtor with felony, I do not see why the principal should not be liable. Again, if the corporation should place in the hands of its agent a claim, with instructions to enforce its payment by threats of criminal prosecution, I think it would be liable for false accusations jnade by its agent in pursuance of such instructions. Of course, in both instances this view is based upon the general liability of the corporation regardless of its right of possible justification.
Under all the circumstances of this case, which it is unnecessary for me to review at length in a concurring opinion, I assent to a new trial, when the facts can be more fully developed and the law perhaps more clearly applied, but I do not wish to be bound by an apparent concurrence in principles that do not meet my approval.
Clare: and MONTGOMERY, -J. J., concur in the concurring opinion of Douglas, J.