Court Opinion

ID: 9807840
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 20:17:22.853186+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:03:29.562719
License: Public Domain

*445BbowN, J\,
dissenting: I am of opinion tbat tbe conclusion reached by tbe majority of my brethren is in contravention of tbe previous decision of this Court, and tbat tbe motion to nonsuit should be sustained. As tbe facts are not stated fully in tbe opinion, I set them out from tbe record.
Tbe only witness examined who testified to tbe facts was J. A. Wall, introduced by tbe plaintiff.
After testifying tbat be was assistant baggage agent at tbe union station in Winston-Salem, tbe witness says: “About- seven days before Lincoln Moore was killed, I found a pistol in an old desk in tbe baggage room. This desk set on the back side, •where we kept all our checks and some supplies. I found tbe pistol a few days after Mr. Minter, tbe baggage agent, took charge. I took it out and rubbed it up, and got tbe dust off of it. .Mr. Minter saw me when I found it.
“When I put tbe pistol in tbe drawer immediately after finding it, I did not put it in tbe drawer where we kept tbe baggage checks. Tbe drawer in which I put it contained a book and some old circulars.
“On tbe morning tbat Lincoln Moore was killed, tbe pistol was in tbe drawer on top of Norfolk and Western Railway checks. I put it there. It was put in tbat place tbe evening before Moore was shot. There was one cartridge in tbe pistol. Up to tbe time I put it in tbe drawer just spoken of, it bad been in tbe drawer where tbe circulars and 'book were.
“Mr. Minter said to me: ‘I found a cartridge I believe will fit your old gun.’ When be told me about this cartridge, I took tbe pistol out and put tbe cartridge in it.
“Lincoln Moore bad been working in tbe baggage room about two months and a half. He was hired by Yictor Davis; bis duties were to help load baggage going out and unload baggage coming in. He was under my instructions and did what I told him to do. We were both at tbe station tbat morning, getting tbe baggage off on tbe 5 :40 Southern train. Tbe next train tbat left after tbat was tbe 7 :05 train over tbe Norfolk and Western for Roanoke. After getting tbe baggage off on tbe *446Southern, Lincoln Moore and I came around near my desk, and Lincoln Moore sat on a stool inside of the office and was combing bis bail-.
“I went to get some Norfolk -and Western checks to put strings on them to prepare to cheek the baggage going out on the 1:05 Norfolk and Western. Opening the drawer, I found the pistol lying on top of the checks, and I picked it up with my right hand and was going to lift it back, into the other drawer, and just as I went to pull the drawer it got hung.
“I stepped back like this (indicating), and as I stepped back, it went off, the bullet striking Lincoln Moore and killing him. I had pistol in my right hand and was trying to open the drawer with my left hand, and in jerking, the pistol went off.”
It is not contended that'the defendant or its officers either authorized or knew of the keeping of the poistol in the desk by the baggage agent, Wall. In my opinion, it was the unauthorized and personal act of Wall, for which the defendant is not liable.
1. Wall was not acting within the scope of his authority or in furtherance of this defendant’s business. He says his purpose in opening the drawer was to get checks to put on baggage for the 1:05 -Norfolk and Western train, and that the pistol was lying on top of those checks, and that he picked it up for the purpose of putting in the other drawer from which he had taken it. He was no more acting for the defendant when he took the pistol up to remove it to the other drawer and accidentally killed Moore, than he would have been had he willfully and intentionally discharged it.
Suppose a merchant’s clerk had placed a pistol in his desk without the knowledge or authority of his master, and, in going into the desk to get out papers in his master’s business, he had taken the pistol off the needed papers, and in so doing had accidentally but negligently killed a fellow clerk, does any one for a moment suppose that this Court would hold the merchant liable for such unauthorized act? If the merchant would not be held liable under such circumstances, then this defendant, although a railway company, ought not to be!
*447The test laid down by Justice Hoke in Sawyer v. R. R., 142 N. C., 1, is: “Where the question of fixing responsibility on corporations by reason of' tbe tortious acts of their servants depends exclusively upon the relationship of master and servant, the test of responsibility is whether the injury was committed by authority of the master expressly conferred or fairly implied from the nature of the employment, or the duties incident to it.”
- And in the same case it is held that private corporations are liable for their torts (of this character) under such circumstances as would attach liability to natural persons. In this case a railway company was exonerated from liability for the tortious conduct of a superintendent when refusing employment to one who had applied to him for it.
This case is cited and -approved in Marlowe v. Bland, 154 N. C., 141, where a farmer ordered his servant to cut and pile cornstalks, who, after piling them, without authority from his master, set fire to them and caused damage. The master was held not liable.
This same idea is expressed by Wood' in his work on Master, and Servant, section 307, quoted in Marlowe v. Bland.
“The simple test is whether they were acts within the scope of his employment; not whether they were done while performing the master’s business, but whether they were done by the servant in furtherance thereof, and were such as may fairly be said to have been authorized by him. By ‘authorized’, is not meant authority expressly conferred, but whether the act was such as was incident to the performance of the duties intrusted to him by the master, even though in opposition to his express and positive orders.”
In Jones v. R. R., 150 N. C., 475, it is said: “Certainly no one will seriously contend that a master is an insurer of his servant’s conduct in respect to torts committed by him while in his employment, without regard to the pivotal question whether such conduct had any relation to or was in the scope of the employment.”
*448This' subject is so fully discussed in tbe cases I bave cited, as well as by Justice Walker in. Jackson v. Telegraph Co., 139 N. C., 347, and Daniel v. R. R., 136 N. C., 517, tbat it is useless to cite other authorities. .
It is true the pistol was on top of the checks, but the declared purpose in taking the pistol out of the drawer was not so much to get at the checks as to put the pistol'back in the o.ther drawer from which witness had taken it. The checks could easily have been taken out by lifting up the pistol and not removing it from the drawer. It was not at all necessary, in order to accomplish the master’s work, that the pistol should have been taken out of the drawer it was in. That was the personal act of Wall, for which the defendant should not be held liable, as it neither knew of it nor could by any sort of means have prevented it.
2. There is another ground upon which it appears to me the motion to nonsuit should be sustained. This action is brought against the Southern Railway, and not against the Norfolk and Western.
While under the statutes of North Carolina these two railway corporations are compelled to cooperate in maintaining a union station in Winston-Salem, they are not and cannot be in any sense copartners, and neither is liable for the contracts or torts of the other. '
The fact that the Southern Railway assisted in maintaining this union station, and employed Wall to load its baggage, did not make it responsible for Wall’s acts when he.was acting exclusively for the Norfolk and Western in checking and loading its baggage.
Wall testifies that the Southern Railway train had been loaded with baggage and had gone. At the time of the injury he was getting Norfolk and Western checks for the baggage on that train. He was performing no act whatever for the Southern Railway when he went in the desk and removed the pistol.
It is surely permissible for one person to act as agent for two others in performing separate and distinct duties at differ*449ent times for each principal 'without making both principals liable jointly for all bis acts, there being no partnership or privity between the principals. ’ .
It is true that this particular reason for sustaining the non-suit is not urged in the brief, but it is our duty to consider it when we pass on the sufficiency of the evidence to’warrant a recovery of this defendant.
Me. Justice WalkeR concurs in this dissent.