Kline v. Eubanks
| Decision Date | 15 December 1902 |
| Docket Number | 14,410 |
| Citation | 33 So. 211,109 La. 241 |
| Court | Louisiana Supreme Court |
| Parties | KLINE v. EUBANKS |
Appeal from judicial district court, parish of Richland; W. J. Gray Judge.
Action by Wilber Kline against William Eubanks. Judgment for defendant, and plaintiff appeals. Affirmed.
George Wesley Smith, for appellant.
Carey J. Ellis and Bernard Titche, for appellee.
Plaintiff brought this action against the defendant for $ 2,150, -- an amount claimed as damages he alleges he has suffered. The grounds of plaintiff's suit are that defendant enticed away a laborer from his plantation, and employed him.
Plaintiff alleges that he contracted with James Wilhite, the laborer referred to, about Christmas of the year 1901, for the said Wilhite to live on his place, and that he (petitioner) leased to Wilhite a tract or parcel of land at a rental consisting of a proportion of corn and cotton that the laborer would raise on the place.
Plaintiff avers that he, relying on his contract with this laborer, to the knowledge of defendant, made advances in goods and money to the laborer, and that he made improvements which he would not have made had it not been for this contract.
For the laborer's failure to cultivate new
land, as it was anticipated by the
plaintiff he would do under the con-
tract, plaintiff claims
$ 100
Loss of crop on land the laborer had
bound himself to work
900
Loss of time in trying to get another ten-
ant
75
Total
Plaintiff claims an additional sum allowed by the text of St. No. 50 of 1892, which reads that he "shall be liable in double the amount of damages in a civil action."
The defendant pleaded, in the first place, the exception of no cause of action, and subsequently, in a second exception, he pleaded that, inasmuch as plaintiff sued for damages for the violation of a criminal statute, the state, not he, had the right to bring such an action, and that, if he (plaintiff) had a standing in court to recover such damages, the suit under the terms of the statute, could only be brought after prosecution and conviction in a criminal proceeding; that that portion of the statute alleged to have been violated is unconstitutional and inoperative, by the reason of the fact that the purpose of the statute is not indicated by the title, and the body contains more than one object; and lastly defendant pleaded the prescription of six months. With consent of all parties concerned, the exceptions were consolidated. They were heard by the court, and dismissed as of nonsuit, at plaintiff's costs.
Plaintiff, in bringing suit, does not seem to have contemplated recovering any damages except those recoverable under St. No. 50 of 1892. The averment of his petition shows that he looked to that statute to afford him the relief for which he sued.
In our view, to the extent that anything is claimed under that statute the action cannot be sustained. A verdict of conviction is made a prerequisite.
The statute cited supra denounces the act complained of as a misdemeanor, and sets out that upon conviction the defendant shall be fined, and he shall be liable in double the amount of damages in a civil action.
The language is even clearer as relates to conviction as a prerequisite, than the statute interpreted in Walworth v. Ballard, 12 La.Ann. 245, which statute provides, as shown by the following abbreviation of the text: "That in case any person shall take possession of a vacant estate without being duly authorized, he shall be prosecuted, and on conviction, shall be fined and shall be moreover liable to pay all the debts of the estate." Act No. 315, p. 400, Acts 1855.
The court held in the decision just cited that conviction was a prerequisite to civil action.
The view has since been affirmed. Carl v. Poelman, 12 La.Ann. 344. As in the cited cases, the act complained of is made penal, and said the court in the first case cited supra, from which we quote: We find close analogy between the case before us for decision and the decisions from which we have just quoted, in which the court further said: "Moreover, it is hardly to be supposed that the legislature intended to invest the private citizen with the power, upon the proof of the conversion of an article or two of small value to the use of another, to charge that other with all the debts with which the succession may be burdened, however large they might be."
For similar reasons, it is not probable that it was intended to invest the private citizen, under the statute of 1892, with the power of recovering twice the amount of the damages on the ground of misdemeanor, not shown by a verdict found prior to the civil suit.
The court also said in the cited case
We leave this branch of the case, convinced that plaintiff can find no relief under St. No. 50 of 1892 before a prior conviction in accordance with the provisions made evident by its text.
We will here add that we agree with plaintiff that one may recover damages before a civil court for damaging crimes. We hold, however, as stated before, that the condition precedent must be shown. Here, as before said by us, it does not appear affirmatively that there was a prior conviction.
We pass to the next proposition pressed upon our attention by plaintiff, -- that, if his action be unavailable under the statute cited, he still has a right to recover under the general law, which provides that "every act whatever of man that causes damage to another obliges him by whose fault it happened, to repair it." Civ. Code, 2315.
Allegations made with the view of bringing the action within the terms of the special statute of 1892 are scarcely broad enough to bring the action within the general law. In other words, the enticing away and knowingly employing a laborer, substantially charged in the petition, do not set forth a cause of action under the law just quoted. It more particularly appears that the laborer who deserted the field was the cause of damage, and not the last employer. The laborer, who is a free agent, after all, is the proximate cause, and the employer the remote.
The following decisions, because of the difference in the facts from this case here, we think, as relates to law, sustain our decision. It appears in Dickson v. Dickson, 33 La.Ann. 1263, that the...
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...for his intentional acts of interference with the contract rights of another." Id. at 232. In so holding, it discussed Kline v. Eubanks, 109 La. 241, 33 So. 211 (1902), which had been considered a bar to an action for intentional interference with contract unless the means used were unlawfu......
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