Alabama Fuel & Iron Co. v. Rice

• Citation: 187 Ala. 458,65 So. 402
• Decision Date: 22 January 1914
• Docket Number: 543
• Court: Supreme Court of Alabama
• Parties: ALABAMA FUEL & IRON CO. et al. v. RICE.

65 So. 402

187 Ala. 458

ALABAMA FUEL & IRON CO. et al. v. RICE.

No. 543

Supreme Court of Alabama

January 22, 1914

On Rehearing, June 4, 1914

Appeal from Circuit Court, Shelby County; Hugh D. Merrill, Judge.

Action by I.A. Rice against the Alabama Fuel & Iron Company, Scott Taylor, and Roe Hinesly for damages for an assault and battery and false imprisonment. Judgment for plaintiff, and defendants appeal. Reversed and remanded.

Percy Benners & Burr, of Birmingham, and Samuel Henderson and Haynes & Wallace, all of Columbiana, for appellants.

Frank S. White & Sons, of Birmingham, for appellee.

SOMERVILLE J.

The communication made by the bailiff to the jury that the trial judge had gone away, and that he would keep the jury together until the return of the judge several days later, unless they reached a verdict before that time, was, under the circumstances shown by the record, a presumptive coercion of the verdict which quickly followed the bailiff's announcement.

This case cannot be materially distinguished from that of K.C., M. & B.R. Co. v. Phillips, 98 Ala. 170, 13 So 65, where the reasons for the conclusion are fully stated and on the authority of that case defendant's motion to set aside the verdict should have prevailed, and its denial must result in a reversal of the judgment.

Although count 3 of the complaint claimed damages specially for his confinement for six days in the jail at Calera, and it appeared, without dispute, that that confinement was under a legal warrant, nevertheless plaintiff might, under his general averment, have recovered for his unlawful detention previous to his jail confinement; and the general charge was properly refused to defendant on this count.

It was necessary for plaintiff to show that Hinesly and Taylor were acting as agents or servants for defendant corporation at the time of and with respect to plaintiff's unlawful arrest by them, or that their acts in that behalf were subsequently ratified by defendant. On these issues it was competent for plaintiff to show that these parties had previously acted in the same capacity on defendant's premises, if their acts were of such frequency and notoriety as to justify the inference that they were known to and acquiesced in by their alleged employer, or its alter ego. Talladega Ins. Co. v. Peacock, 67 Ala. 253, 262.

The evidence on this subject was undoubtedly sufficient to justify the inference of their agency, and there was evidence of the approval and ratification of their acts by De Bardelaben, defendant corporation's local manager; and the general charge was properly refused to defendant on the other counts of the complaint.

This result depended, of course, upon proof that De Bardelaben was clothed with authority with respect to the matters in question. We think, however, that his authority may well be...