A'Hern v. Iowa State Agric. Soc.

• Decision Date: 17 May 1894
• Citation: 91 Iowa 97,58 N.W. 1092
• Parties: A'HERN v. IOWA STATE AGRICULTURAL SOC. ET AL. (TWO CASES). JORDAN v. IOWA STATE AGRICULTURAL SOC. ET AL. (TWO CASES).
• Court: Iowa Supreme Court

91 Iowa 97

58 N.W. 1092

A'HERN

v.IOWA STATE AGRICULTURAL SOC. ET AL. (TWO CASES).

JORDAN

v.IOWA STATE AGRICULTURAL SOC. ET AL. (TWO CASES).

Supreme Court of Iowa.

May 17, 1894.

Appeals from district court, Polk county; S. F. Balliett, Judge.

Actions for damages against the Iowa State Agricultural Society. Plaintiffs appeal. Affirmed.Nugent & Connelly, for appellants.

Henry S. Wilcox, for appellee Iowa State Agricultural Soc.

KINNE, J.

1. These three cases involve the same questions, and are submitted together for one opinion. The petition in each case charges, in substance, that the defendant society is a corporation organized and transacting business under the laws of this state; that on September 2, 1891, and during the annual exhibition of the society, the other defendants, as its officers and agents, and by its authority, did arrest, restrain, and commit an assault upon the plaintiffs, to their damage in the sum of $5,000. To these petitions demurrers were filed on the ground that the alleged wrongful acts committed against plaintiffs were not shown to be within the scope of the employment of the persons committing such acts, but were in fact committed outside the scope of their duties. The lower court sustained the demurrers, and plaintiffs elected to stand on their petitions, and excepted in each case to the ruling of the court.

2. The only question for us to determine is as to the liability of the society for the acts complained of; and at the outset it is important to have in mind that the society is in no sense a corporation for pecuniary profit. It is an agency of the state. It exists for the sole purpose of promoting the public interest in the business of agriculture. Its public character more fully appears when we consider that its organization is provided for by statute; that it has no stockholders; that by law the president of each county agricultural society in the state, or other delegate therefrom, duly authorized, is made a member of the board of directors; that said board is required to make annual reports to the governor, which are to be distributed throughout the state; that the powers of the board are prescribed by statute. Code, §§ 1103-1108, 1114-1116, inclusive. The society is empowered by law to arrest persons for selling intoxicating liquors, and for gambling and horse racing, within its grounds. Id. §§ 1114, 1116. No other authority to arrest or detain persons is given to the society, and the arrests and detentions in the cases at bar were not for any of the causes above specified. It seems to us, then, that in doing the acts complained of the defendants were not acting within the scope of the powers which the society could confer upon them. Such acts were entirely foreign to the purposes for which the society was organized. It was not authorized to enforce the criminal statutes of the state generally. The directors of the society had no power to do the acts complained of in its behalf, and hence could not so authorize others to perform...