Court Opinion

ID: 9586283
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 23:09:05.598178+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:27:31.465793
License: Public Domain

Bussey, Justice
(dissenting) :
Being of the view that there was no error and that the judgment below should be affirmed, I most respectfully dissent. Essentially it is the contention of the appellant that the agreement between the parties created the relationship of master and servant between Turbeville and Wayne Green and such contention is predicated on nothing more, as I see it, than that the agreement between the parties provided in part that the proceeds of the crop were to be shared equally by the parties after the crops were harvested and sold by Green.
It is, of course, true that many sharecropping agreements do create the relationship of master and servant. Seemingly the parent case in South Carolina holding that the relationship of master and servant arose out of a sharecropping agreement is Huff v. Watkins, 15 S. C. 82 (1880). The statement of the case there showed the agreement between the parties to be as follows:
“ ‘About the first of January, 1879, the plaintiff contracted with Jordan Butler and other persons to work his *462land during the year. The plaintiff was to furnish the land, stock and farming implements, and to feed the stock, and to have the entire control of their time and services, and they to have therefor one-half of the crop that remained, after first deducting one bale of cotton, twenty bushels of corn and two hundred bundles of fodder to each horse; and that in consideration therefor they were to work under his exclusive direction and control from sun to sun, and do all things necessary for making and gathering a crop; also,’ that, in consideration that Jordan Butler agreed to assist the plaintiff in securing laborers and to take the lead in the work, the plaintiff agreed tO' pay him one bale of cotton extra.’ ” (Emphasis added.)
Quite contrary to the facts in Huff v. Watkins, here Green was an independent farmer, farming some 600-800 acres of land, Shiloh Earm being only one of several farms worked by him. Under his agreement with Turbeville on the Shiloh Farm he furnished the labor and equipment and inferentially of course the maintenance and fuel therefor; he was to harvest the crops, sell them and give Turbeville one-half of the proceeds. I fail to find any evidence in the record from which an inference could be drawn that under the arrangement between the parties Turbeville exercised or had the right to exercise any control whatsoever over the manner and means by which Green performed his part of the contract, and in the absence of such, an essential element of the relationship master and servant is simply lacking.
As I understand it Mr. Justice Ness would reverse because the trial judge declined to charge appellant’s request to charge number 2 which read as follows:
“I charge you that the relationship of a land owner and his sharecropper is that of landlord and servant. A sharecropper is nothing more than a laborer or servant of the landlord, regardless of the number of acres sharecropped.”
*463Even if there were any evidence from which an inference could be drawn that the relationship between the parties here was that of master and servant, appellant would not have been entitled to the requested charge for two reasons. First and foremost it did not purport to submit to the jury the issue of whether such a relationship existed but rather to charge the jury that such was in fact the relationship in this case and hence it was a charge upon the facts in violation of Article V, Section 17 of the Constitution. In the second place such request does not contain a sound or complete statement of the applicable law, although admittedly it does include, verbatim, a broad statement taken from the opinion of this Court in Powers v. Wheless, 193 S. C. 364, 9 S. E. (2d) 129. The Powers case is completely distinguishable upon the facts, and the issues involved and certainly the court never intended to hold that the relationship of master and servant existed in all cases merely because a part of the agreement involved sharing the crops or the proceeds thereof.
It is the settled law of this State that unless propositions submitted as a whole in requests to charge, are wholly correct, it is not the duty of the trial judge to charge them or any part of them. See numerous cases collected in West’s South Carolina Digest, Trial, Key No. 261.