Atlanta Cotton Factory Co. v. Speer
| Decision Date | 16 January 1883 |
| Citation | 69 Ga. 137 |
| Parties | ATLANTA COTTON FACTORY COMPANY v. SPEER, by next friend. |
| Court | Georgia Supreme Court |
September Term, 1882.
[This case was argued at the last term, and the decision reserved.]
1. A corporation acts only through its agents, and unless responsible for their acts is wholly irresponsible. The agent who represents the corporation as master over other employés for the time occupies the position of the corporation for such time as to such subordinates. The corporation is bound to appoint a skilled and prudent manager to such position, and is negligent if it employs an imprudent or incompetent person; and if, from the negligence of this quasi master, unmixed with negligence of his own another servant or employé is injured, the corporation will be responsible.
2. Especially was this the case where the injured employé was a child without access to the president or general superintendent, and who received her orders solely from the manager of the branch of the business in which she was engaged.
( a. ) It makes no difference that such subordinate manager violated the orders of his superior officer in placing the employé in a position of danger nor does it matter that at the time the entire factory where the injury occurred was under the general supervision of a watchman, and that he had an altercation with the subordinate manager under whom the class of employés to which plaintiff belonged were at work, in regard to putting them in the room, in emerging from which plaintiff was injured. The watchman and the subordinate manager having settled their difference, and the employés having been put in the room, any negligence in so doing was imputable to the corporation, not to the plaintiff.
3. The court having submitted the question of negligence to the jury, including all the circumstances surrounding the injury the age of the plaintiff, her ignorance of her danger, the length of time she had been connected with the factory, and the question of cortributory negligence, and the jury having found for the plaintiff, we cannot say that there was error either in the instructions of the judge or in the verdict.
Master and Servant. Damages. Negligence. Before Judge CLARK. City Court of Atlanta. June Term, 1881.
Hester Speer, by her mother as next friend, brought suit against the Atlanta Cotton Factory Company to recover for an injury received by her by falling through an opening prepared by the company for an elevator. On the trial, the evidence showed in brief, the following facts:
The factory was under the general management of a superintendent named Harris. Each department under him was in charge of a " boss," and in each room there were two overseers one of whom had charge during the day, the other during the hours of labor at night. Cobb was the night overseer of the spinning room at the time of the accident, and as such had control of the operatives in the spinning room during the hours of labor at night. Plaintiff was one of these operatives. The superintendent did not communicate directly with the subordinate employés. The factory ran day and night, except Saturday nights, when it suspended work at three o'clock on Sunday morning, and remained inactive until Monday morning. After work ceased at night, the night watchman was in charge of the factory. On Sunday morning, April 4th, 1880, the operatives in the spinning room ceased work about the usual time. Most of them went home as usual, but there were some children who were afraid to return home before daylight. Among these was the plaintiff, who was about fifteen years of age. They were conducted to a basement room where the employés were in the habit of taking coffee at night. The general instructions of the superintendent to the night watchman were that no employéshould be allowed to remain in any part of the factory, except this basement room, after the suspension of work on Sunday morning. Cobb went into the basement room, and, finding it damp and cold there, told Mattox, the night watchman, to carry the children to what was known as the cloth room on the second floor. The watchman replied that it was against orders to allow them in the mill, and that the company would " be coming on" him; that he had to obey rules, and would not have anything to do with it. Cobb responded that he would take the responsibility, and thereupon conducted the children to the cloth room. The watchman did not actually forbid this, but replied as just stated. The cloth room was situated on the second floor, and was slightly separated from the main body of the factory, being connected therewith by a passage-way some sixteen or eighteen feet in length. On one side of this passage-way, and outside of the direct line between the doors, the company was constructing an elevator, and for that purpose had opened a hole in the floor about six by eight feet in size. The carpenters employed by the company were engaged in other work, and only worked on the elevator at odd times, so that its progress was slow, and it had been under process of construction for a month or two before the accident. Ordinarily, a plank was placed in front of this hole to prevent accidents, but on this particular night the precaution seems to have been omitted. There was some conflict in the testimony as to what Cobb said to the girls on putting them in the cloth room. He testified that he told them to go in and lie down on the burlap which was there, and not to play about the room at all or leave the room, and that he closed the door on going out; and this was corroborated by two or three witnesses for the defence as to telling them not to go out of the room; while plaintiff and another witness testified that Cobb said the girls could go in the cloth room and play, lie down, sleep or do as they liked, provided they did not get on the white cloth, and plaintiff stated that Cobb did not close the door. After placing the girls in the room, Cobb went home. There was a light in the cloth room, but none in the passage. Plaintiff had never been in the cloth room before, and did not know of the hole. After Cobb's departure, the children began to play at hide and seek, and plaintiff, going out into the passage for the purpose of seeking a better hiding place, fell into the hole cut for the elevator and was seriously injured. The superintendent was sent for, and, arriving in about half an hour, sent the plaintiff home, accompanied by a doctor.
There was some testimony on behalf of plaintiff to the effect that the superintendent said he had previously told the president that if the place was not fixed some one would fall through. This was denied by the superintendent, who also stated that after the operatives ceased work on Saturday night, Cobb had no authority to let them go over the factory, and that no one had any business in the cloth room, except those who were connected therewith; he admitted having carried some of the children into the cloth room one night and allowed them to sleep on the rolls of burlap, but he did not think that Cobb was present, or that he had mentioned the fact to Cobb.
There was some other testimony in regard to the extent of the injury, etc., not material here.
The jury found for the plaintiff three thousand dollars. Defendant moved for a new trial on the following grounds
(1.) Because the verdict is contrary to law.
(2.) Because the verdict is contrary to evidence.
(3.) Because the court erred in charging the jury as set out in the third subdivision of the charge of the court.
(4.) Because the court erred in charging the jury as set out in the fourth subdivision of the charge.
(5.) Because the court erred in charging the jury as set out in the fifth subdivision of the charge.
(6.) Because the court erred in charging the jury as set out in the sixth subdivision of the charge.
(7.) Because the court erred in charging the jury as set out in the seventh subdivision of the charge.
(8.) Because the court erred in charging the jury as set out in the eighth and ninth subdivisions of the charge.
(9.) Because the court erred in charging the jury as set out in the tenth, eleventh, twelfth and thirteenth subdivisions of the charge.
(10) Because the court erred in charging the jury as set out in the fourteenth and fifteenth subdivisions of the charge.
(Those portions of the charge excepted to are set out below.)
(11.) Because the court refused to charge the jury, as requested by defendant in writing, before the charge began, " If you find from the evidence that after the factory stopped work on Saturday night, Cobb's authority ceased, and on the Saturday night that plaintiff was hurt, if you find from the evidence that the factory stopped work and Cobb's authority had ceased, and the plaintiff with other girls had gone to the room in the basement, where defendant allowed them to stay, and that Cobb went to that room, and, in violation of the orders of defendant, invited or carried the plaintiff and other girls to the cloth room and left them there, telling them to remain there, and the plaintiff, while playing, went out of that room into a passage and fell into the hole made for the elevator, then I charge you that she would not be ??d to recover in this case, even if you further find that the defendant was negligent in leaving the hole there."
(12.) Because the court refused to charge, " If you find from the evidence that plaintiff had no business in the cloth room, or in the passage where the elevator hole was, and that Cobb had no authority, under the rules of the defendant, to carry her there, then in the eye of the law she would be a trespasser, and cannot recover in this case, even if you should find that the defendant was negligent."
(13.) Becau...
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