Commonwealth v. Pulaski County Agricultural & Mechanical Ass'n

• Decision Date: 31 October 1891
• Parties: Commonwealth v. Pulaski County Agricultural & Mechanical Ass'n.
• Court: Kentucky Court of Appeals

17 S.W. 442

92 Ky. 197

Commonwealth v. Pulaski County Agricultural & Mechanical Ass'n.

Court of Appeals of Kentucky.

October 31, 1891

Appeal from circuit court, Pulaski county.

"To be officially reported."

Indictment of the Pulaski County Agricultural & Mechanical Association for permitting gaming on its fair-grounds. A demurrer to the indictment was sustained, and the state appeals. Reversed.

Holt C.J.

The appellee, the Pulaski County Agricultural & Mechanical Association, a corporation, was indicted for permitting gaming upon its fair-grounds. A demurrer was sustained to the indictment, and it was dismissed. It is contended that a corporation cannot commit this offense. It was in the early history of the law held that, as a corporation was soulless it could do no wrongful or immoral act, and could not therefore, be liable in tort. This doctrine has long since become obsolete, and it has long been well settled that a corporation is liable civiliter for all torts committed by its authority, express or implied. With the growth of corporations came the necessity for this rule, and its adaptability to changed circumstances is an excellence of the common law. So far does the rule extend that a corporation is liable civilly for every intended or negligent wrong it may do, although the act may be ultra vires. If it be incidental to or connected with its business, or if it ratify the transaction, as by accepting the benefit, it must respond in damages, although the act be done, as it must, by an agent. In time, it came to be admitted that a corporation was liable to be indicted for a neglect of duty, or a mere non-feasance; but it was claimed that its nature did not admit of its doing positive wrong and that, therefore, it was not liable criminally for a misfeasance, whereby a wrong was done by a violation of its duty. This same reason, however, if sound, applied equally to civil as well as criminal injuries; and it soon became known from experience that, as has been said, if a corporation had no hands with which to strike, it may employ the hands of others. This distinction was therefore properly disregarded as unsound. If the argument be sound that a corporation is not liable to indictment for any offense, because the criminal act was not warranted by its corporate powers, then the same reasoning would result in its non-liability for all wrongs, civil as well as criminal. Such a rule would lead to its absolute impunity for all wrongs, which the experience of this day shows would produce great injustice both to individuals and the public. If it be said that the individuals who might do the act would be liable, it may be said that this is true as to every servant or agent who does a wrong, but because this is so the principal is not exempt. Indeed, it has been and should be rather the policy of the law, because that is likely to the better protect from the commission of wrong, to look rather to the principal than the agent, and it seems to us especially should this be so in the case of corporations for whose benefit the act is done, or being connected with its business, is negligently...