Court Opinion

ID: 9645129
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 21:13:33.650563+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:11:23.608270
License: Public Domain

George Rose Smith, J., on rehearing. In a petition for rehearing the appellee insists that our opinion overlooked, and tacitly overruled, our holding in American Ry. Exp. Co. v. Davis, 152 Ark. 258, 238 S. W. 1063. It is argued that in the Davis case we held, upon facts essentially similar to those in the present case, that the servant, in handling a pistol, had stepped aside from his master’s business, so that the latter was not liable. The Davis case was not overlooked, but it does not support the appellee’s position. That case was reversed solely because the trial court had erroneously instructed the jury that if the master furnished the servant with a dangerous weapon such as a pistol the master would be liable “even though the use of the pistol was not in connection with the performance of any duty” at the time of the plaintiff’s injury. In reversing the case, however, we did not dismiss the action. Instead, it was sent back for a new trial, which of course was a recognition of the master’s possible liability. Indeed, that liability was explicitly confirmed upon the second appeal in the case, American Ry. Exp. Co. v. Davis, 158 Ark. 493, 250 S. W. 540. Thus the case, when carefully read, actually supports our present decision. Rehearing denied. McFaddin, J., dissents.