Bryan v. Bryan
| Citation | 61 S.E.2d 177,217 S.C. 555 |
| Decision Date | 12 September 1950 |
| Docket Number | 16408. |
| Parties | BRYAN et al. v. BRYAN. |
| Court | United States State Supreme Court of South Carolina |
Lee & Shuler and Edward W. Cantwell, all of Kingstree Henry E. Davis, Florence, for appellant.
W. D. Connor, Kingstree, for respondents.
The respondent Elizabeth J. Bryan, owns two tracts of land in Williamsburg County: one known as her home tract where she resdies containing 247 acres; and the other tract, known as the 'Martha' Place, containing sixty-two and one-half acres. The larger tract of land is located to the north of South Carolina State Highway 521, and is separated therefrom by a portion of appellant's land. An avenue leads from the highway across the lands of appellant to the dwelling house of respondents. The 'Martha' tract is located on the south side of the same highway, and it likewise is separated from the highway by a portion of appellant's land. As in the case of the larger tract, an avenue or roadway leads from the highway across appellant's land to the dwelling on the Martha tract.
Appurtenant to the two tracts of land, Mrs. Bryan possessed an easement,--an admitted right,--to the use of these avenues or roads leading across appellant's lands for ingress and egress for herself, her tenants and sharecroppers. In fact, the record shows that the public used these roads without let or hindrance, and had been doing so for more than twenty years.
The respondents Vivian B. Lifrage, is the daughter, and Harry O. Lifrage is the son-in-law of the other respondent Elizabeth J. Bryan. The appellant, J. G. Bryan, is the brother-in-law of the respondent, Mrs. Bryan, and the uncle of the respondent, Vivian B. Lifrage.
The parties to the action have owned their respective lands for many years, and have farmed it by tenants and sharecroppers. In 1945, 1946, and 1947, Harry O. Lifrage and Vivian B. Lifrage rented the farming lands on the two tracts from Mrs. Bryan for an annual rental of $400.00, and lived in the home with Mrs. Bryan, the respondent. In the cultivation of the crops, they utilized colored tenants and sharecroppers, as did the appellant on his adjoining farm.
Respondents allege that during the winter of 1947-1948, their tenants and sharecroppers moved from their premises; and they charge that this resulted from threats of violence on the part of appellant. That appellant, with the wilful and malicious intent to injure respondents, forbade them and their tenants and sharecroppers from using the avenues or roads in question which cross his land, and threatened them with violence and injury if found upon the roads. It is also charged that appellant circulated rumors among the Negroes in the vicinity as to what he would do with any one of them if as a tenant or sharecropper of respondents, he traveled these roads.
It is further alleged that as a direct consequence of threats of injury and personal violence, the Negro tenants and sharecroppers became intimidated, left the respondents' farms, and that by reason of such threats, respondents were unable to obtain other tenants or sharecroppers. The Lifrage respondents were forced to abandon their farming operations for the succeeding year,--that is, 1948,--and rented the lands for agricultural purposes to Mr. Boyd, a nearby farmer, for the same rental they were paying Mrs. Bryan, to wit: the sum of $400.00. The record shows that Boyd transported his laborers daily by truck back and forth from his farm to the Bryan place.
Appellant admitted by answer that respondents had the right to use the roads across his lands to their respective farms, but he denied the threats of violence, and denied that anything he did resulted in damage to them.
The trial resulted in a verdict for respondents in the sum of $3,000.00, actual damages, and $2,000.00, punitive damages, after which a motion for a new trial was made before the trial judge, and denied.
Error is assigned by appellant because the court allowed the witness, Fred Holmes, who was a tenant of respondent in 1947, to testify concerning rumors and messages which he claims to have heard.
Holmes had been a sharecropper of respondents continuously for more than twenty years. He testified that during that period he lived in a tenant house on the home tract. He said that in the latter part of 1947 a message was brought to him by his uncle, Andrew Tisdale, concerning the use of the roads leading from Mrs. Bryan's place to the highway and across lands of appellant. He said that until he received this message, he had intended to continue as a sharecropper on respondent's home tract, but being fearful of what Mr. Bryan might do to him if he used the road, which was the only means of ingress and egress he felt forced to leave and did leave.
The court held that this witness, Holmes, could testify to what he did or did not do as a result of the rumors referred to, and whether as a result he became afraid. This challenged testimony was later connected up, without objection of appellant, with the evidence given by Andrew Tisdale. Tisdale said that appellant told him to give Fred Holmes a message,--that if he caught him on his place he was going to 'leave him right there.' This message was given by Tisdale to Holmes and appellant admitted while on the stand, that he sent the message in question to Holmes by Tisdale. It is true that he denied giving any specific orders not to use the roads, but he admitted that the message contained the specific injunction, 'not to go on my land.' Throughout the case, appellant attempted to make a distinction between his lands and these roads which crossed them, just as though respondents, their sharecroppers and tenants were trespassers on his lands adjacent to the roads. But the testimony of many witnesses was clear on the point that in making his threats of violence, he had reference not only to the lands, but to the roads.
We think no error was committed in the introduction of this evidence.
I. M. Boyd, who rented respondent's farming lands for the year 1948, testified as to the amount of cotton and crops made and sold by him from these lands during that year. Appellant argues that the admission of this evidence constituted error, as it comprised no index as to what respondents would have made in the year 1948.
The record shows that counsel for respondents sought to elicit this testimony on direct examination of Mr. Boyd. On objection interposed by appellant's counsel, the testimony was excluded. Upon cross-examination, however, substantially the same facts were brought out by appellant's counsel. When this occurred, the court permitted counsel for respondents to pursue the same line of examination. Assuming without deciding that the evidence was inadmissible, appellant is not in a position to raise the issue. Under the circumstances stated, the court committed no error.
Mr. Boyd testified that he sold from his crops made on respondent's lands $4,800.00 worth of tobacco; that in addition to this he made twenty-three bales of cotton, and four or five hundred bushels of corn. Assuming, as did the trial judge, that the cotton was of standard size bales and in 1948 was of the value of thirty cents per...
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