Hendricks v. Western Union Telegraph Co.
| Decision Date | 03 April 1900 |
| Citation | 35 S.E. 543,126 N.C. 304 |
| Parties | HENDRICKS v. WESTERN UNION TEL. CO. |
| Court | North Carolina Supreme Court |
Appeal from superior court, Lincoln county; Coble, Judge.
Action by W. L. Hendricks against the Western Union Telegraph Company to recover for negligence in failing to deliver a message. From a judgment in favor of plaintiff, and an order overruling a motion for a new trial, defendant appeals. Affirmed.
A person who delivered a message to a telegraph company for transmission may testify, in an action to recover for the negligence of the company in failing to deliver the message to the plaintiff, that he could have learned from plaintiff's family whether he lived in the town to which the message was sent, if he had been notified that it had not been delivered.
This was an action brought by the plaintiff to recover damages for the negligent failure of the defendant to deliver two telegrams, one of which was sent by his brother-in-law George Moore, and the other by his mother. The first of said messages, sent on the 12th day of November, 1895, was as follows: The second was sent on the 13th day of said month, and was in the following words These messages were addressed to the plaintiff, who was then at Gaffney, S. C., in care of the Gaffney Cotton Mills; the plaintiff being at the time employed in said mills as a "boss" in the card room. The toll on the first message was prepaid in Lincolnton, from which place it was sent, and the second message was sent "collect." Plaintiff lived at Gaffney, S. C., at the time the messages were sent, and had lived there for two months, in a house on Limestone street, within 300 or 400 yards of defendant's office, which was also situated on said street. The evidence tends to show that plaintiff was well known in said mills and that he worked in the carding room. He got his mail regularly at the postoffice, and was known at some of the leading stores and other places of business in the town. He left Gaffney on the 14th day of November to go to Cherryville, N. C., which is near Lincolnton, in response to a telegram sent to him by one Rhodes from that place, and which was received at defendant's office in Gaffney and delivered to him before he left, on the 14th of November. His sister died on the 12th of November, and he did not know of her sickness or death till the 15th, the day after she was buried, when he met, in Cherryville, one of his sisters who told him of it. When he returned to Gaffney, about 10 days afterwards, he inquired at defendant's office for the two messages, and they were found by the operator in a basket of papers in a corner of the office, and handed to plaintiff. The operator at Lincolnton did not hear anything from the operator at Gaffney concerning the first message he sent, on the 12th, nor did he hear anything from him about the second message, which was sent on the 13th, till after the body of Mrs. Moore, the sister of the plaintiff, had been taken to the burial place, some 10 or 20 miles from her home, when the operator at Gaffney informed the operator at Lincolnton, by a "service message," that the plaintiff could not be found, and that he would have to collect the charges on the two messages. The operator at Gaffney, when he received the first message, on the 12th, gave it to the messenger, a boy about 12 years of age; and, if we accept the latter's testimony as true (though there was much conflicting evidence), he went to the Gaffney Mills, and inquired for the plaintiff, and was told by Mr. Wardlaw to go through the mill and look for him, but he did not go through the mill, but only through a part of it. He did not go into the carding room, which was a part of the mill, and the very place where the plaintiff worked. He inquired of only four or five persons, whose names he did not know, and left the mill, and made his other inquiries in a few places in the town; and, failing to find the plaintiff, he returned to the telegraph office and hung the message on the file. What was done with the message that was sent on the 13th, does not appear, though it appears to have reached Gaffney about 11:40 o'clock that day, in time for Mr. Hendricks to have reached his sister's home before the funeral. The messenger did not return to the mill, nor did he ever tell the mill officers that he had a telegram for the plaintiff, or in any way inform them that the message was addressed in their care, nor that it was of serious importance and required prompt delivery; nor did he leave, or offer to leave, the message with any of them, nor insist that they should receive it for Mr. Hendricks. The operator at Gaffney did not send any service message to the operator at Lincolnton, notifying him of the failure to deliver the message of the 12th, and asking if Mr. Hendricks had a residence in Gaffney, and to make inquiry of the sender of the message as to where he lived in the town; nor did he ask the operator at Lincolnton for a better address.
Defendant assigns as errors the following: "(1) His honor's overruling defendant's objection to the question asked the witness Reinhardt, which question was as follows 'Could you have found out from the plaintiff's family that plaintiff lived in Gaffney, if you had been informed that the telegram had not been delivered?'--to which ruling defendant excepted. (2) His honor's refusal to give the instructions asked by defendant in the course of the trial, Nos. 2, 3, and 4, which are as follows: (3) For errors committed by his honor in giving the charges requested by the plaintiff, numbered 1, 2, 3, and 6, and which are as follows (with the modification made by the court): ...
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