Court Opinion

ID: 9807912
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 20:20:17.227954+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:04:47.853344
License: Public Domain

Clark, C. J.,
dissenting: There is no evidence that the agent “required at least three minutes to copy the message in the office, number and enter it on the delivery book,” and no evidence that he was required to do any of these things by the company. “What does not appear, does not exist.”
*444The uncontradicted evidence is that the defendant’s agent received this urgent message 15 minutes before the train came; that it was received at Burlington with instructions to “rush” it (and the answe.r admits this) ; that the train stopped at Bethel two minutes; that the operator knew the sendee, who was stopping at a hotel 75 yards away in full view, and that in fact for several minutes before the train came the sendee was sitting in a few feet of the door of the operator’s office, and that during these 17 minutes the operator made no effort whatever to deliver this message, either himself or through a messenger, and his only excuse is that as express agent (not as telegraph agent) he had a crate of fowls to put on when the train should arrive, and as railroad agent he had some tickets to sell and he thinks one trunk to check.
Whatever time his duties as agent for the express company or the railroad company required, is no defense for the defendant. The operator does not claim that he had any other, message to deliver or that his duties as representative of the telegraph company took a single second out of the 17 minutes, which the defendant had for the delivery of this telegram. If the defendant chose to employ an agent who had other and more remunerative duties, it cannot use that fact as a valid excuse for failure to discharge its duty in the delivery of this telegram. It should at least have furnished him a messenger for its work, if it employed so busy a man.
The judge did not err in holding upon these facts that the failure to deliver in 17 minutes was negligence. What else could it be ? It was not diligence. When the facts are found, whether this is negligence is a question of law. In Meadows v. Telegraph Co., 132 N. C., 40, the plaintiff contended that a message coirld have been delivered a half mile away in 15 minutes, and the defendant did not controvert and could not controvert a fact of such common knowledge. Here, the hotel was 75 or 100 yards away. The defendant’s answer admits *445that it received this message with instructions to “rush” it. It was not complying with this agreement when its agent at Bethel, having only this one message, for 17 minutes made no effort to deliver it to the sendee. The plaintiff as beneficiary has the same cause of action as if he had been sendee. Sherrill v. Tel. Co., 109 N. C., 527; Gorrell v. Water Co., 124 N. C., 328.
The judge in the statement of the case sets out the plaintiff’s evidence “that if the message had been delivered to him on his arrival at Bethel the plaintiff would have remained on that, train and continued his journey to Goldsboro, arriving there between 2 and 3 o’clock, where he could have and would have connected with a train over the Southern Railway that would have brought him to Burlington about 6 p. m. Sunday the 20th.” The defendant’s agent testified that the connection by Selma could not have been made.
The defendant asked the following prayer: “If you find from the evidence that the plaintiff would have proceeded on the train on which he arrived at Bethel, if the message had been delivered to him before the departure of said train, and that he could not have reached Burlington till 6 o’clock a. m. on Monday the 21st, and that he arrived there on the same day at 11 o’clock he would not be entitled to recover any damages for suffering prior to the arrival of the 6 o’clock train, but only for such suffering as he endured between 6 o’clock a. m. and 11 o’clock a. m. of the same day.” This the court gave, but, singularly enough, the defendant’s eighth assignment of error is to the following extract from the charge, which is almost in totidem verbis with the defendant’s prayer given as above set out, to-wit: “Then it is your duty to consider what damages is a reasonable compensation for the increased anxiety and mental suffering that Charley Ner-nodle endured in consequence of that telegram not being delivered in time. If he has satisfied you by the testimony of D. W. Kernodle that he could have come on and gotten there *446that evening at 6 o’clock, then as a matter of course he will be entitled to compensation for the anxiety and suffering that he endured by not being able to communicate with his wife, and not being able to hear from her from that time up to the time that he got here the next day.”
The court charged at the request of the defendant, “If he (the plaintiff) could not have reached Burlington till 6 a. m.,” and in his charge he says, “If he could have come on and have gotten there that evening at 6 o’clock.” This shows that the case was tried upon the theory that the plaintiff would have gone if he could (which he testified to and was not contradicted), for the defendant’s prayer for instructions uses the same words “could,” without adding “would.” The defendant surely cannot complain that the charge uses the same form of words which it asked the court to tell the jury contained the law applicable to the facts.
It has been strenuously insisted that the plaintiff, leaving Bethel at 9:20 a. m., could not have made connection at Goldsboro so as to reach Burlington at 6 p. m., as he testified, but that the defendant’s agent was right when he testified that the plaintiff could not have made the connection at Selma. But the court could not assume that the plaintiff’s evidence was incorrect and refuse to submit it to the jury. Aside from the fact that such controversy is one of fact for the jury, this leaves entirely out of sight .the patent fact to which the defendant’s witness testified, that if the agent were right and connection could not have been made that afternoon, still the plaintiff (had he remained on the train at Bethel) would have gotten to Burlington at 6 a. m., Monday, instead of 11 a. m., and the judge charged in the very words of the defendant’s prayer as to the measure of damages, if the jury should find that state of facts. The verdict is entirely consistent with that finding, which, doubtless, is the verdict returned by the jury. The answer admits that when the plaintiff did not remain on the train at Bethel, he *447could. not bave gotten home any quicker than by going to Eocky Mount that night, which it admits he did. Its evidence went to show that had he remained on the train'he would not have gotten to Burlington till 6 a. m. Monday, and its prayer on that aspect was given.
There is absolutely nothing in the verdict to indicate that the jury found that the plaintiff could have made connection at Selma or Goldsboro, Sunday afternoon. His evidence is uncontradicted that if he had received the message at Bethel he would have remained on the train and have gone home. It is admitted by the defendant’s prayer (and shown by defendant’s evidence) that had he done so he would have reached Burlington at 6 a. m. Monday instead of 11 a. m., and the court charged in the words of the defendant’s prayer as to the damages on that state of facts (which the jury doubtless found, and there is nothing to the contrary). The jury found as properly charged by the judge that upon the defendant’s own showing there was negligence, in not delivering such a telegram, so short a distance, in 17 minutes, and assessed the damages. In this there is no error surely.