Compher v. Missouri & Kansas Telephone Co.

• Decision Date: 02 December 1907
• Court: Missouri Court of Appeals
• Parties: COMPHER v. MISSOURI & KANSAS TELEPHONE CO.

106 S.W. 536

127 Mo. A. 553

COMPHER v. MISSOURI & KANSAS TELEPHONE CO.

Kansas City Court of Appeals. Missouri.

December 2, 1907.

Rehearing Denied January 6, 1908.

1. MASTER AND SERVANT — ACTS OF SERVANT — SCOPE OF EMPLOYMENT.

A master is responsible for the torts of the servant, committed within the scope of his employment.

2. SAME — MASTER'S LIABILITY FOR INJURIES TO SERVANT.

The act of a chief operator, who was the vice principal of a telephone company for the purpose of maintaining discipline among the operators at the switchboard, in taking hold of the chair of an operator, who had turned away from the switchboard, and violently whirling it around, thereby injuring the operator, was an act of superintendence within the scope of the chief operator's employment, and the telephone company was liable for the injury so sustained.

Appeal from Circuit Court, Jackson County; T. J. Seehorn, Special Judge.

Action by Eva Cook Compher against the Missouri & Kansas Telephone Company. Judgment for plaintiff, and defendant appeals. Affirmed.

Harkless, Crysler & Histed, for appellant. C. W. Prince and Boyle, Guthrie & Smith, for respondent.

JOHNSON, J.

Action to recover damages for personal injuries alleged to have been negligently inflicted by defendant. The verdict and judgment were for plaintiff, and defendant appealed.

The only ground relied on for a reversal of the judgment is that the learned trial judge erred in refusing defendant's request for a peremptory instruction to the jury to return a verdict in its favor. In disposing of the questions of law presented under this contention, we will accept as proved the facts adduced in evidence most favorable to the cause of action asserted. At the time of the injury, July 21, 1902, plaintiff, then an unmarried woman about 20 years of age, was employed as a switchboard operator by defendant, a corporation engaged in the business of operating a telephone exchange in Kansas City. Together with some 50 other girls similarly employed, she was on duty at the switchboard in the central office. Each operator was required to attend to the calls from 100 telephones, and each was provided with a revolving chair to occupy while at work. The chairs were arranged in a straight line in front of the switchboard. The room was in charge of a chief operator, whose duty it was to see that the operators attended to their work in an orderly and businesslike manner. While he had no authority to employ or discharge the operators, he had authority to enforce disciplinary orders, either by reproving the offender or, if she persisted in being refractory, by sending her home. The chief operator on duty at the time of the occurrence in question observed that many of the girls had turned away from the board and were laughing and talking. This conduct was against the rules, and to restore proper order he wrote a note in which he directed them to stop talking and to face the board, and passed the note down the line. Plaintiff, at the time, was busy answering calls, and the note passed, unread by her. A few moments later, having no work to do, she turned her chair around in order to obtain a brief rest from the cramped position she occupied while facing the board. The chief operator, observing the movement in apparent violation of the order he had just given, angrily went to plaintiff's chair, grabbed it by the back, and with great force and violence whirled plaintiff around, exclaiming, "Eva Cook can't you face your board?" Plaintiff's knees and body collided with parts of the substructure of the switchboard, and she sustained very severe injuries, the nature and extent of which it is not necessary to mention, since no point is made that the verdict was excessive.

It is conceded that the chief operator was the vice principal of defendant for the purpose of maintaining discipline in the room, but it is denied that he had authority, either express or implied, to employ physical force to secure obedience to the rules of the company: and it is argued that since defendant, as plaintiff...