Cooper v. McJunkin
| Decision Date | 15 June 1853 |
| Citation | 4 Ind. 290 |
| Parties | Cooper v. McJunkin |
| Court | Indiana Supreme Court |
ERROR to the Allen Circuit Court.
The judgment is reversed with costs. Cause remanded.
H Cooper, for the plaintiff.
J. W Dawson and M. Jenkinson, for the defendant.
Cooper sued McJunkin in trespass.
The first count is in the usual form for an assault and battery. The second count alleges that McJunkin unlawfully, and with inhuman violence, beat, bruised, cut and gashed the face and head of Cooper, &c.
The defendant filed several pleas, none of which are now before us, except the fourth plea.
In the introductory part that plea enumerates the several trespasses in the first and second counts, and avers that they are one and the same acts of trespass. The pleader then states that the relation of teacher and pupil subsisted; that at, &c., in school and during school hours, Cooper, as such pupil, was negligent, disorderly, &c.; that McJunkin, as such teacher, finding it necessary for the good government of the school, did thereupon moderately correct Cooper, as he lawfully might, for the cause aforesaid, averring that this moderate correction constitutes the several acts of trespass in the declaration mentioned, and in the introductory part of the plea enumerated, &c.
The replication, admitting the bad conduct of Cooper, is a species of de injuria, to which a demurrer was sustained, and judgment for the defendant. The replication is informal--perhaps bad; but it is good enough for a bad plea.
The law still tolerates corporal punishment in the school-room. The authorities are all that way, and the legislature has not thought proper to interfere. The public seem to cling to a despotism in the government of schools which has been discarded everywhere else. Whether such training be congenial to our institutions and favorable to the full development of the future man, is worthy of serious consideration, though not for us to discuss.
In one respect the tendency of the rod is so evidently evil, that it might, perhaps, be arrested on the ground of public policy. The practice has an inherent proneness to abuse. The very act of whipping engenders passion, and very generally leads to excess. Where one or two stripes only were at first intended, several usually follow, each increasing in vigor as the act of striking inflames the passions. This is a matter of daily observation and experience. Hence the spirit of the law is, and the leaning of the courts should be, to discountenance a practice which tends to excite human passions to heated and excessive action, ending in abuse and breaches of the peace. Such a system of petty tyranny cannot be watched too cautiously nor guarded too strictly. The tender age of the sufferers forbids that its slightest abuses should be tolerated. So long as the power to punish corporeally in school exists, it needs to be pet under wholesome restriction. Teachers should, therefore, understand that whenever correction is administered in anger or insolence, or in any other manner than in moderation and kindness, accompanied with that affectionate moral suasion so eminently due from one placed by the law "in loco parentis"--in the sacred relation of parent--the Courts must consider them guilty of assault and battery, the more aggravated and wanton in proportion to the tender years and dependent position of the pupil.
Were it within the province of these discussions, how many other objections to the rod, based upon its injurious moral influence on both teacher and pupil, might be safely assumed.
One thing seems obvious. The very act of...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
Ingraham v. Wright v. 1976
...Reitman, Follman, & Ladd, supra, at 34-35; National Education Association, supra, at 7. 18. See Falk, supra, 66-69; cf. Cooper v. McJunkin, 4 Ind. 290 (1853). 19 See 1 F. Harper & F. James, The Law of Torts § 3.20, pp. 288-292 (1956); Proehl, Tort Liability of Teachers, 12 Vand.L.Rev. 723, ......
-
Morse v. Frederick
...did not favor the broad discretion given to teachers to impose corporal punishment recognized that the law provided it. Cooper v. McJunkin, 4 Ind. 290, 291 (1853) (stating that “[t]he public seem to cling to a despotism in the government of schools which has been discarded everywhere else”)......
-
Board of Ed. v. Purse
...People, 87 Ill. 303; Murphy v. Board, 30 Iowa 429; Perkins v. Board, 56 Iowa 476, 9 N.W. 356; Parker v. School Dist., 5 Lea, 525; Cooper v. McJunkin, 4 Ind. 290; Hathaway Rice, 19 Vt. 102; Ward v. Flood, 48 Cal. 36; Huse v. Lowell, 10 Allen, 150; Kidder v. Chellis, 59 N.H. 473; Metcalf v. S......
-
Roberts v. State
...liable if, in performing their duties, they act with 'corrupt motives' or evil design. Baker v. State (1867), 27 Ind. 485; Cooper v. McJunkin (1853), 4 Ind. 290; Gardner v. State (1953), 4 Ind. 632; State v. Neff (1877), 58 Ind. 516; Miller v. Griesel (1973), Ind.App., 297 N.E.2d In Bonahoo......
-
The Last Legally Beaten Servant in America: from Compulsion to Coercion in the American Workplace
...his conduct becomes more or less criminal." Id. By 1853, some states were heeding the "more progressive rule." Cooper v. Mcjunkin, 4 Ind. 290, 293 (1853) ("The husband can no longer moderately chastise his wife; nor, according to the more recent authorities, the master his servant or appren......