Hanks v. Hines

• Decision Date: 27 March 1920
• Docket Number: No. 2531.,2531.
• Parties: HANKS v. HINES, Director General of Railroads.
• Court: Missouri Court of Appeals

219 S.W. 978

HANKS v. HINES, Director General of Railroads.

No. 2531.

Springfield Court of Appeals. Missouri.

March 27, 1920.

Appeal from Circuit Court, Pemiscot County; Sterling H. McCarty, Judge.

Action by Bryan Hanks against Walker D. Hines, Director General of Railroads of the United States. Judgment for plaintiff, and defendant appeals. Affirmed in part, and reversed and rendered in part.

W. F. Evans, of St. Louis, and Ward & Reeves, of, Caruthersville, for appellant.

M. O. Morris and N. C. Hawkins, both of Caruthersville, for respondent.

STURGIS, P. J.

The plaintiff's suit is on three counts: The first, for commission due him on sale of tickets; the second, for the return of money paid to defendant, with the understanding that it would be paid back by defendant, if it should be determined that plaintiff did not owe it to defendant; the third, for rent, or rather for use and occupation, of a building owned by plaintiff and used for a ticket office and passenger station. The plaintiff recovered on each count, and defendant appeals.

The plaintiff had been employed and acting for a number of years as ticket and station agent at Bragg City, a small town on a branch line of the St. Louis & San Francisco Railroad. There was no depot there, and a store building owned by plaintiff was used as a ticket office and more or less as a place for passengers to wait for trains and the transaction of whatever business the defendant railroad had at that station. The plaintiff was paid 10 per cent. of the value of all tickets sold by him. This arrangement had existed for seven or eight years, and it appears that during that time the St. Louis & San Francisco Railroad Company, with which the first arrangement had been made, passed through a receivership, was reorganized, and emerged as the St. Louis-San Francisco Railway Company. Then on December 31, 1917, the control and operation of the road, by virtue of the act of Congress (U. S. Comp. St. § 1917A) under its war powers, passed into the hands of the Director General of Railroads. The plaintiff knew but very little of all these changes in the ownership and operation of the railroad. To him it was always the Frisco Railroad. No new contracts were made in consequence of these changes, and plaintiff continued to work for and serve the entity known to him as the railroad on the same terms and for the same compensation, without knowing or paying any attention to the changes in ownership or control. The court and counsel arranged the pleadings here so that the present suit is, as it must have been for the most of plaintiff's claim, against the Director General only.

The defendant does not deny but that there was due plaintiff the sum of $39 for commissions on tickets sold by him during the month of August, 1918. The defendant's claim is that plaintiff failed to pay over to defendant all the money collected for tickets sold; the shortage amounting to $233.92, as at first claimed. The plaintiff denied this shortage, but, fearing prosecution for embezzlement and for other reasons, consented to make this good. The amount due him for commission on sale of tickets was credited, to him on his alleged shortage. He also turned over to defendant's agent a Liberty Bond valued at $100, and was still short, or indebted to defendant, as defendant claimed, $233.92.

It is plain that, if plaintiff was not short in his account with defendant, then defendant could not credit what it owed plaintiff on such shortage, and the verdict on the first count is correct. It is also true, we think, that if plaintiff was not in fact short in his account with defendant, then he ought to recover the amount of the Liberty Bond turned over to defendant in part payment of the alleged shortage. We think it...