Hudgins v. State

• Decision Date: 09 November 1906
• Citation: 55 S.E. 492,126 Ga. 639
• Parties: HUDGINS v. STATE.
• Court: Georgia Supreme Court

55 S.E. 492

126 Ga. 639

HUDGINS v. STATE.

Supreme Court of Georgia

November 9, 1906

Syllabus by the Court.

An accusation under section 122 of the Penal Code of 1895, which charges that the accused did by offering higher wages persuade and decoy, and did attempt to persuade, entice, and decoy by offering higher wages, the servant of a named person, "after he had actually entered the service of his employer, to leave his employer during his term of service," knowing that he was so employed, sufficiently sets forth a contract of employment between the servant and the master, as against a motion in arrest of judgment on the ground that the accusation failed to allege what the contract was and whether it was verbal or written.

A contract of hiring for a year, to begin in praesenti, is not within the operation of the statute of frauds.

The evidence authorized the verdict, and no sufficient reason appears for reversing the judgment.

Error from City Court of Griffin; E. W. Hammond, Judge.

J. J Hudgins was convicted of enticing away a servant, and brings error. Affirmed.

C. J Lester and L. W. Shurman, for plaintiff in error.

L. E Patterson, Sol., for the State.

COBB, P.J. (after stating the foregoing facts).

During the existence of slavery it was neither necessary nor important that the negro should be instructed as to the binding obligation of a contract. When he emerged from this condition, and immediately, without any instruction on the subject, became clothed with full contractual powers, it is not surprising that he could be induced by unscrupulous white men to flagrantly violate the obligations of contracts into which he had entered. It may be that while the Constitution of 1865 was in force, and prior to the adoption of the fourteenth amendment to the Constitution of the United States, the General Assembly had power to declare that the violation of a contract by a negro should be a crime, without making such an act by a white man penal. The General Assembly, however, seemed to have had no desire to make such a discrimination, nor was it deemed in furtherance of a wise public policy that every breach of a contract should be declared a crime. To prevent as far as possible the disastrous effects resulting from servants being enticed to violate their contracts of employment, in 1866 a statute was enacted which declared it a crime for a person to employ the servant of another during the term for which he was employed, knowing that the servant was so employed and that his term of service had not expired, and also making it a crime for any person to entice, persuade, or decoy, or to attempt to entice, persuade, or decoy, any servant to leave his employment by offering higher wages, or in any other way, during the term of service, knowing that the servant was so employed. Code 1868, § 4428; Acts 1866, p. 153. As the servant class of this state was made up largely of negroes, the effect of this statute was, not to punish the negro who violated his contract, probably through ignorance that such an act involved any moral obliquity, but to punish the persons (generally white persons) who brought about the wrong resulting from the servant leaving his employer. That portion of the statute which made it a crime to employ the servant of another was, in 1873, amended by making it applicable to cases only where the servant was under a written contract attested by one or more witnesses. Acts 1873, p. 20. The act of 1866, as thus amended, was embodied in the Code of 1873, as well as in the Code of 1882, appearing in each Code as section 4500. In 1883 the section of the Code just referred to was further amended by adding the words "cropper or farm laborer," after the word "servant," wherever it appeared in the section, and, in that portion of the statute relating to enticing away the servant of another, adding the words, "whether under an oral or written contract." Acts 1882, p. 60. In the Penal Code of 1895 that portion of the statute above referred to which relates to the employment of the servant, cropper, or farm laborer of another is embraced in section 121. The remaining portion of the law is embraced in section 122, in the following language: "If any person shall, by offering higher wages or in any other way, entice, persuade, or decoy, or attempt to entice, persuade or decoy any servant, cropper or farm laborer, whether under a written or parol contract, after he shall have actually entered the service of his employer, to leave his employer during the term of service, knowing that said servant, cropper or farm laborer was so employed, he shall be guilty of a misdemeanor."

It...