Haskins v. Royster

• Decision Date: 31 January 1874
• Court: North Carolina Supreme Court
• Parties: JOHN R. HASKINS v. F. A. ROYSTER.

16 Am.Rep. 780

70 N.C. 601

JOHN R. HASKINS

v.F. A. ROYSTER.

Supreme Court of North Carolina.

January Term, 1874.

Any third person, who without lawful justification, induces a party who, for a consideration, has contracted to render personal service to another, to quit such service and refuse to perform his part of the agreement, is liable to the party injured in damages.

That the consideration of a contract is too small, or its terms unreasonable, will not justify a Court, for the benefit of a third person not a party thereto, in setting such contract aside; nor is the fact that one of the contracting parties is appointed to decide as to the performance or non-performance of certain conditions, a sufficient cause for annulling and setting aside the same.

READE and SETTLE, JJ. dissenting.

CIVIL ACTION, to recover damages for enticing away laborers, heard before Tourgee, J., at Spring Term, 1873, of PERSON Superior Court.

In his complaint, the plaintiff alleges that he had employed certain laborers, naming them, to work on his farm during the year 1871, under written contracts; and that while they were at work according to the terms of said contract, the defendant, in March of that year, unlawfully enticed and persuaded said laborers to leave his, the plaintiff's employment, and unlawfully harbored and detained them for the space of ten months. For this, plaintiff demands damages, &c.

The case states, that after hearing the evidence on both sides and before the case was left to the jury, his Honor decided that the plaintiff was not entitled to recover upon his complaint filed. To which ruling plaintiff excepted, submitted to a nonsuit, and appealed.

W. A. Graham, (with whom was J. W. Graham and McCorkle & Bailey,) for appellant , filed the following brief:

The laborers mentioned in the statement of the case were the servants of the plaintiff, and enticing them away from his service or harboring and retaining them, with a knowledge of their obligation to the plaintiff, was injury to him, to be redressed by an action.

1. This is so by the common law. The relation of master and servant has existed from the earliest stages of society. It is recognized both in the 4th and 10th commandments of the decalogue, and is said by Blackstone to be founded in convenience, whereby a person calls in the assistance of others when his skill and labor will not be sufficient to answer the cares incumbent on him. 1 Black. Com., 421. It is constituted by the contract of hiring. Ibid, 425. And as a general rule, every person of full age of 21 years, and not under any legal disability is capable of becoming a master or a servant. Smith on Master and Servant. Law Lib., 75, p. 1.

And beside the relations of the parties to each other, an action lies in favor of the master to recover damages against any person who shall hire or retain his servants, or seduce them away. 1 Black., 429, in text, and note in Sharswood's edition, 6 Mod. R. 182; 1 Parson's Cont., 532, and cases cited. Smith supra. 78, 79, and cases cited.

And although the defendant was ignorant of the first contract when he hired the servant, and no action may lie for enticing him away, yet if he continued to employ or harbor him, after knowledge of the prior engagement an action lies. Ibid 79, 80. Fawcett v. Beavers, 2 Dev., 63; Blake v. Lougee, 6 T. R., 221. For instances of such actions in N. C., see Harris v. Mabry, 1 Ired., 240; Mabson v. Seaboard Railroad Co., 4 Jones, 379; Porter v. Seaboard Railroad Co., 6 Jones 245.

2. But such an action is given by a recent statute of this State, suggested no doubt by the present condition of labor, especially with reference to agriculture. A. A., ??I865-'66, ch. 58, p 22, 23; A. A. 1866-'67, ch. 124, p. 197, the first giving an action and double damages, the second an indictment.

There have also been adjudications on what constitutes a “cropper,” or servant, as contradistinguished from a tenant, who is a quasi proprietor. State v. Burwell, 63 N. C., 661; Denton v. Strickland, 3 Jones 61.

3. Compensation to the hired man by a share of the crop, does not render him any the less a servant, nor constitute him a tenant or partner. It is very different from a stipulation for a share of the profits.

In some cases the distinction may be difficult to draw. But in this case there is no difficulty. The direction and control of the whole operations of the year are vested in the plaintiff, with stringent securities, not only for obedience, but for correct and respectful behavior towards him and his family, of all which he is made the judge.

Wherever in such a contract, the will of one party is to control, and the will of the other is subordinated, so that he is to conform his conduct to that control, the former is master and the latter a servant. No degradation is implied. The relation is the result of voluntary contract, and is adopted for the convenience and benefit of both parties.

McCorkle & Bailey, for appellant , filed the following additional brief:

Two views of the question involved are submitted:

First. Viewed under the doctrine of master and servant: There are a number of cases in which nice distinctions are taken between “tenants” and “croppers;” but without adverting to them, it is submitted that there is one unmistakable criterion deducible from all the cases, namely, has the party other than the land owner an estate in the premises? If not, he is a servant, not a tenant.

The contract under consideration gives full power to the land owner.

1. We submit that the contract specified in the complaint did not create the relation of landlord and tenant, but that Eastwood and the others became thereby mere croppers, and for this we cite McNeely v. Hart, 10 Ired. 63; Brazier v. Ansley, 11 Ired. 12.

One who makes a crop for another, vulgice, a cropper, is a servant, a hired servant, and the circumstance that he is to receive payment in a portion of the crop, instead of money, is of no appreciable weight. If the land owner is to make division, then he pays, and the cropper does not, as in tenancies, pay the land owner as for rent. Wiswall v. Brinson, 10 Ired. 554.

2. Is there any policy of the law which forbids the creation of the relation of master and servant. In free England and the free Northern States, the relation has been recognized from the earliest times.

Society cannot long exist without grades, and the relation of master and servant springs from the earliest and always continuing needs of society, without reference to the character of government. All the elementary writers agree. See 1 Cooley Black. 429, note 15.

Independent of these considerations, the pohcy of our law has been recognized and declared by two acts of the Legislature, passed since the abolition of slavery. The act of 1865-'66, chap. 58, p. 122, gives an action for enticing or harboring any servant. The act of 1866-'67, chap. 124, p. 197, makes such an act indictable.

Second. But suppose Eastwood and others be treated on the broader ground, not of servants or employees, but of contractors, we submit even on this broad platform the plaintiff has stated a cause of action. Ubi jus ibi remedium. And this jus is not a mere right in conscience, but a legal as well as equitable ground of action, and extends to every legal demand or claim.

Whenever one has suffered damage by the wilful act or default of another, a jus accrues, subject on the modification that the injury is proximate. Lumly v. Gye, 2 Ell. Black. 216; Barbee v. Armstead, 10 Ired. 530.

RODMAN, J.

We take it to be a settled principle of law, that if one contracts upon a consideration to render personal services for another, any third person who maliciously, that is, without a lawful justification, induces the party who contracted to render the service to refuse to do so, is liable to the injured party in an action for damages. It need scarcely be said that there is nothing in this principle inconsistent with personal freedom, else we should not find it in the laws of the freest and most enlightened States in the world. It extends impartially to every grade of service, from the most brilliant and best paid to the most homely, and it shelters our nearest and tenderest domestic relations from the interference of malicious intermeddlers. It is not derived from any idea of property by the one party in the other, but is an inference from the obligation of a contract freely made by competent persons.

We are relieved from any labor in finding authorities for this principle, by a very recent decision of the Supreme Court of Massachusetts, in which a learned and able Judge delivers the opinion of the Court. Walker v. Cronin, 107 Mass. R., 555.

That case was this: The plaintiffs declared in substance that they were shoemakers, and employed a large number of persons as bottomers of boots and shoes, and defendant unlawfully and intending to injure the plaintiff in his business, persuaded and induced the persons so employed to abandon the employment of the plaintiff, whereby plaintiff was damaged, &c.

A second count says that plaintiff had employed certain persons named to make up stock into boots and shoes, and defendant well knowing, &c., induced said persons to refuse to make and finish such boots and shoes, &c.

The third count is not material to be noticed.

The defendant demurred. The Court held each of the counts good.

I shall make no apology for quoting copiously from this opinion, because the high respectability of the Court, and the learning and care with which the question is discussed, make the decision eminently an authority.

“This (the declaration) sets forth sufficiently (1) intentional and willful acts, (2) calculated to cause damage to the plaintiffs in their lawful business, (3) done with the unlawful purpose to cause such damage and loss, without right or justifiable cause on the part of the defendant, (which constitutes malice,) and (4,) actual damage and loss resulting.”

“The general...