Court Opinion

ID: 9809298
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 21:07:29.96184+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:25:56.029004
License: Public Domain

Seawell, J.,
dissenting: On the abstract proposition that the principle respondeat superior does not apply where in his sin of commission or omission the peccant servant was not about his master’s business, I have seen many opinions pro and none that I recall contra. Thus far, the thing seems to me rather self-evident and the statement very general —too general, I think, to dispose of the more serious question presented in the case at bar, which I may be permitted to formulate as follows: Does the owner and keeper of a store owe to invited customers, who come upon the premises to transact business, the duty of reasonable protection while there? If the assault made by defendant’s manager upon the plaintiff was contrary to such a duty — resting alike on the defendant owner and on his employees, including the assailant manager —the doctrine of respondeat superior is again enthroned.
This Court has in the past answered our question, inferentially at least, in the affirmative. Munick v. Durham, 181 N. C., 188, 195, 106 S. E., 665; Seawell v. R. R., 132 N. C., 856, 44 S. E., 610. And for this there is abundant outside authority: See cases cited in Munick v. Durham, supra.
There is no reason why this salutary principle should be confined to railroad companies or municipalities, unless it is on the theory that the larger the corporation the more soulless it becomes. In this connection we should remember that some great mercantile companies probably come into contact with more persons daily than the average railroad and have at least equal opportunities for petty oppression. Also, the sound judgment, wisdom, and tact of leaders who have built up and control these commendable enterprises may be at such a distance from these public contacts as to make the operation equally impersonal as to them.
Approaching the subject on one line, in negligence cases we find that the owner of premises owes an invitee the duty of reasonable protection against dangerous conditions. Clark v. Drug Co., 204 N. C., 628, 169 S. E., 217; Jones v. R. R., 199 N. C., 1, 153 S. E., 637; Ellington v. *325Ricks, 179 N. C., 686, 102 S. E., 510. Converging upon our objective along another line, we find that certainly the duty of reasonable protection to an invitee upon the premises is extended to railroad corporations and to municipalities. If both lines are cut and stopped here, the doctrine stands out frustrated, incomplete, wanting in symmetry, like a truncated cone; and the principle, as the courts continue to apply it, discriminatory and invidious. In justice there can be no closed category of corporations to which the principle may be confined.
If this be established, I think the Court, as a court of law, has carried the burden of adjustment to its jurisdictional limit, and there should turn it over to the jury. I cannot see how it is competent for us to pass upon the amenities which the gentlemen involved in the crucial transaction owed each other in the diplomatic stages preceding active hostilities, nor do I see how it pertains to the functions of this Court either to believe or disbelieve the plaintiff when he testifies that he understood the store manager merely to be showing him a shorter way out when he led him into a dimly lighted room and assaulted him. Dickerson v. Reynolds, 205 N. C., 770, 772, 172 S. E., 402; Lewis v. Basketeria Stores, Inc., 201 N. C., 849, 161 S. E., 924; Stevens v. Rostan, 196 N. C., 314, 145 S. E., 555; Smith v. Safety Coach Line, 191 N. C., 589, 132 S. E., 567.
The evidence, taken in the light most favorable to the plaintiff, calls for consideration by the jury. Newbern v. Leary, 215 N. C., 134; Reid v. Coach Co., 215 N. C., 469; Fox v. Army Store, 215 N. C., 187, 190. However much sporadic verdicts may disturb our faith — they are never epidemic — after all, trial by a jury is an old English custom, rating honorable mention in the Constitution.