Cooper v. Alabama Farm Bureau Mut. Cas. Ins. Co., Inc.

• Decision Date: 06 June 1980
• Citation: 385 So.2d 630
• Parties: Wiley Lamar COOPER v. ALABAMA FARM BUREAU MUTUAL CASUALTY INSURANCE COMPANY, INC. 79-130.
• Court: Alabama Supreme Court

Page 630

385 So.2d 630

Wiley Lamar COOPER v. ALABAMA FARM BUREAU MUTUAL CASUALTY INSURANCE COMPANY, INC.

79-130.

Supreme Court of Alabama.

June 6, 1980.

Rehearing Denied July 9, 1980.

John T. Crowder, Jr., of Cunningham, Bounds, Byrd, Yance & Crowder, Mobile, for appellant.

Thomas M. Galloway, Jr., of Collins, Galloway & Smith, Mobile, for appellee.

BEATTY, Justice.

This appeal is from a Mobile County Circuit Court order granting a motion for summary judgment in favor of defendant Alabama Farm Bureau Mutual Casualty Insurance Company (Farm Bureau). We reverse and remand.

Plaintiff Wiley Cooper owned a Farm Bureau insurance policy covering his pickup truck. Cooper was involved in an accident and filed a claim with Robert Anderton, an agent for Farm Bureau. A dispute between Farm Bureau and Cooper arose concerning whether the truck should be repaired or "totalled." At this time the plaintiff's pickup was stored in a garage in Robertsdale, Alabama. While located there it burned from an undetermined cause.

Subsequently, Anderton had a conversation about the fire incident with Robert Gulledge whose bank had made a loan to Cooper on the pickup truck. According to Cooper's complaint, Anderton defamed Cooper during that conversation by implying that Cooper had intentionally burned his pickup truck. Cooper filed suit in this action against Anderton and Farm Bureau for slander. Farm Bureau moved for summary judgment filing an affidavit stating that the company had neither previously authorized nor subsequently ratified the statement made by Anderton. The trial court granted the motion and Cooper appealed.

This jurisdiction has consistently held that a corporation will not be held liable for a slanderous utterance made by a corporation's agent unless the corporation previously authorized or subsequently ratified the slanderous utterance; it has been held insufficient to show that the corporation's agent was acting within the line and scope of his employment. This rule was first enunciated in Singer Manufacturing Co. v. Taylor, 150 Ala. 574, 43 So. 210 (1907), and has been reaffirmed in all subsequent cases. McIntyre v. Cudahy Packing Co., 179 Ala. 404, 60 So. 848 (1913); Republic Iron & Steel Co. v. Self, 192 Ala. 403, 68 So. 328 (1915); Choctaw Coal & Mining Co. v. Lillich, 204 Ala. 533, 86 So. 383 (1920); National Life Insurance Co. v. Abernathy, 206 Ala. 26, 89 So. 725 (1921); Luquire Insurance Co. v. Parker, 241 Ala. 621, 4 So.2d 259 (1941); Weaver v. Darling Stores, 243 Ala. 65, 8 So.2d 575 (1942).

The underlying rationale of the Singer case was that slander should be distinguished from libel and other torts in that slander is, by its nature, an individual act. The Court, in Singer, stated, 150 Ala. at 577-78, 43 So. at 210-11:

The offense of slander is essentially single, differing in this respect from libel. In Cooley on Torts, p. 124, it is said: "Some wrongs are in their nature necessarily individual, because it is impossible that two or more should together commit them. The case of the oral utterance of defamatory words is an instance. This is an individual act, because there can be no joint utterance. He alone can be liable who spoke the words; and, if two or more utter the slander at the same time, still the utterance of each is individual, and must be the subject of a separate proceeding for redress." See, also, 13 Ency.Pl. & Pr. p. 30.

The liability of the principal for the torts of the agent, when not based upon a breach of duty arising out of contract, as in the case of common carriers, is based upon principles of public policy. It is essential to such liability that the tort of the agent, if not authorized or ratified by the principal, should be committed by the agent in the course of the business of the principal and of the agent's employment. By reason of the fact that the offense of slander is the voluntary and tortious act of the speaker, and is more likely to be the expression of momentary passion or excitement of the agent, it is, we think, rightly held that the utterance of slanderous words must be ascribed "to the personal malice of the agent, rather than to an act performed in the course of his employment and in aid of the interest of his employer, and exonerating the company unless it authorized or approved or ratified the act of the agent in uttering the particular slander." 10 Cyc. p. 1216. Mr. Odgers, in his work on Libel and Slander (star page 368), states the doctrine in this language: "A corporation will not, it is submitted, be liable for any slander uttered by an officer, even though he be acting honestly for the benefit of the company and within the scope of his duties, unless it be proved that the corporation expressly ordered and directed that officer to say those very words; for a slander is the voluntary and tortious act of the speaker."

It is curious that this same reasoning can be applied to other torts which are by their natures individual acts, but for which the Court nevertheless has held a corporation liable in situations wherein the "individual acts" were done by agents of the corporation within the line and scope of the agents' employment. The Court has recognized that a corporation may be held liable for assault and battery, Alabama Fuel & Iron Co. v. Rice, 187 Ala. 458, 65 So. 402 (1913), even where the agent's acts of assault and battery may constitute homicide, Mount Vernon-Woodberry Mills v. Little, 222 Ala. 605, 133 So. 710 (1931); fraud and deceit, Standard Oil Company of Kentucky v. Gunn, 234 Ala. 598, 176 So. 332 (1937); trespass, Union Naval Stores Co. v. Pugh, 156 Ala. 369, 47 So. 48 (1908); false imprisonment, Owsley v. Montgomery & West Point Railroad Co., 37 Ala. 560 (1861); malicious prosecution, Jordan v. Alabama Great Southern Railroad Co., 74 Ala. 85 (1883); conspiracy, National Park Bank v. L. & N. R.R. Co., 199 Ala. 192, 74 So. 69 (1917); libel, Choctaw Coal & Mining Co. v. Lillich, 204 Ala. 533, 86 So. 383 (1920), and conversion, U-Haul Co. of Alabama v. Long, 382 So.2d 545 (Ala.1980). Corporations have also been held liable for punitive damages, Jefferson County Savings Bank v. Eborn, 84 Ala. 529, 4 So. 386 (1888), and in other jurisdictions, corporations have been held liable for conversion, Donnelly v. Levers & Sargeant Co., 226 Mass. 214, 115 N.E. 252 (1917); forcible entry and detainer, Iron Mountain & H. R. Co. v. Johnson, 119 U.S. 608, 7 S.Ct. 339, 30 L.Ed. 504 (1887); and intentional interference with business relations, Lichter v. Fulcher, 22 Tenn.App. 670, 125 S.W.2d 501 (1938). The test in all cases is whether the alleged tortious conduct was committed by the agent within the line and scope of his employment.

We see no substantial legal distinction between the "individual act" of slander and the other ...