Court Opinion

ID: 9530639
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 04:01:58.849423+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:28:12.481273
License: Public Domain

SLOAN, J.,
dissenting.
The majority overlook some positive evidence which, if believed, would establish lack of probable cause. It must be remembered that this account was *267three years old when the action against Alvarez was started. During all of that time the power company employees knew, and the company records revealed, that the power service had not been ordered by Alvarez personally, but by some one purporting to speak for him and bind him. The power company had ample opportunity to investigate the actual facts.
When this account was assigned to defendant credit association these facts were made known to the employees of defendant. Defendant made no investigation to determine if Alvarez was actually or even probably, responsible even though it had been specifically informed that AJvarez was not. On the very day that Mrs. Alvarez first received the letter from defendant which demanded that the bill be paid, Mrs. Alvarez called both the power company and defendant and denied any responsibility for or knowledge of the account. Notwithstanding this knowledge that there was definite doubt that Alvarez was liable, defendant filed its action without further inquiry.
Mrs. Alvarez testified that in her telephone conversation with the defendant’s employee, above mentioned, harsh words were spoken and the employee told her that they knew where Mr. Alvarez worked and, therefore, intended to make him pay. That undisputed testimony is, itself, some evidence of malice. Particularly when the records defendant had to rely on told defendant that there was doubt that Alvarez was liable. And, the employee had just been told in an immediate response to a first demand, that Alvarez did not owe the account.
It is not at all necessary to rely on an inference to find want of probable cause. The court properly submitted this case to the jury.