Court Opinion

ID: 9832266
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 21:46:32.488649+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:43:44.950083
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing.
Appellant insists that the evidence conclusively shows that he did not realize any profit from the enterprise for which the Park Kemp Telephone Company was organized, and that there was an absence of any proof to *143show that he ever contributed thereto; and we find that the contention so made is borne out by the record. However, as pointed out in our original opinion, the testimony of appellant himself conclusively shows that he was one of the participants in the organization of the Park Kemp Telephone Company, and that he undertook to act as a trustee of the funds raised by the contributing members and pay out the same for liabilities incurred in the prosecution of the work. Under such circumstances, we do not believe it can be doubted that he became a member of the association'designated as the Park Kemp Telephone Company, which was a business and not a charitable venture, and that he was liable as a partner for any tort committed by the association acting through its duly authorized agent, even though it be said that the association was not a partnership, in the ordinary meaning of that term. McCamey v. Hollister Oil Co. (Tex. Civ. App.) 241 S. W. 689, affirmed in 115 Tex. 49, 274 S. W. 562; Continental Supply Co. v. Adams (Tex. Civ. App.) 272 S. W. 325, 329 (writ of error denied).
When Curtis Young, the duly authorized agent of the association hired W. H. Wilder to perform services as a lineman and the plaintiff undertook to perform such services, clearly the relation of master and servant as between .Wilder and the association was created; and' the association would be liable for any negligence of the master acting through its agent to the same extent and under the same conditions as of any other master. At all events, Curtis Young, who hired the laborers and who superintended the work of constructing the telephone line, was the agent of the association, and the association would be liable for any negligence on his part in discharging those services under the doctrine of principal and agent. In 13 Corpus Juris, p. 244, the following is said:
“Contracts implied in law, or more properly quasi or constructive contracts are a class of obligations which are imposed or created by law without regard to the assent of the party bound, on the ground that they are dictated by reason and justice, and which are allowed to be enforced by an action ex contractu. . They rest solely on a' legal fiction, and are not contract obligations at all in the true sense, for there is no agreement; but they are clothed with the semblance of contract for the purpose of the remedy, and the obligation arises not from consent, as in the case of true contracts, but from the law or natural equity. So, when the party to be bound is under a legal obligation to perform the duty from which his promise is inferred, the law may infer a promise even as against his intention.”
The following is taken from 5 Corpus Ju-ris, pp. 1363 and 1364, pars. 97 and 99:.
“97. An unincorporated association organized for business, or profit, is in legal effect a mere partnership so far as the liability of its members to third persons is concerned; and accordingly each member is individually liable as a partner for a debt contracted by the association. As each partner represents his copartners, so each member of the association represents his eomembers, and each is bound by the acts of the others in the common behalf. This liability for the debts of the association is imposed on each member by law. It arises out of his membership as a necessary incident thereto. It does not depend upon any stipulation in the laws of the society making him thus liable, or upon his assent to the contract out of which the debt arises; nor is it necessary that the members should have held himself out as a partner, or that the credit should have been extended to him rather than to the association. But, on the contrary, by becoming a member, he subjects himself to liability for all debts contracted by the association within the scope of its object and during the period of his membership.”
“99. The members of an unincorporated association are responsible for tortious acts committed by the society, where it can fairly be assumed that they were within the scope of the purposes for which the organization was formed, and they are liable for torts committed by the association’s agents, acting within thé scope of their employment.”
Chapter 2, tit. 105, Rev. St. 1925, provides that a suit may be brought by or against any unincorporated joint-stock company or association in its company or distinguishing name, and article 6137 of that chapter provides that in the event of a judgment against the association, it shall be equally binding upon the individual members served with citation, and execution may issue against the property of the individual stockholders or members, as well as against the joint property, but that execution shall not issue against the individual property of the stockholders or members until execution against the joint property has been returned without satisfaction. Those statutes are cited to show the recognized common-law liability of the individual members of an unincorporated association, whenever the action is brought against the association in its collective name. But while the statutes noted have application only when the suit is against the association in its collective name, yet article 6138, which is the concluding article of the chapter, expressly provides that the provisions of the former articles of the same chapter shall not impair the right if any person to sue the individual stockholders or members, and that the preceding provisions of the chapter shall be construed as merely cumulative of other remedies existing under the law.
Accordingly, we have reached the conclusion that, even though it could be said that the Park Kemp Telephone Company was not organized for profit and therefore was not, strictly speaking, a partnership, and that appellant was not liable as a partner, nevertheless the members thereof were liable individually under the rules governing in the law of *144master and servant, of the law of principal and agent, at all events.
The motion for rehearing is overruled.