Hutton v. Watters

• Decision Date: 29 September 1915
• Citation: 179 S.W. 134
• Parties: HUTTON v. WATTERS et al.
• Court: Tennessee Supreme Court

179 S.W. 134

HUTTON v. WATTERS et al.

Supreme Court of Tennessee.

September 29, 1915.

Certiorari to Court of Civil Appeals.

Action by E. J. Hutton against H. E. Watters and others. Demurrer to the petition was sustained, and on appeal to the Court of Civil Appeals that judgment was reversed, and defendants bring certiorari. Affirmed.

L. E. Holladay, of Dresden, for appellants. A. B. Adams, of Martin, and R. E. Maiden, of Dresden, for appellee.

NEIL, C. J.

The averments of the declaration are, in substance, as follows:

One of the defendants, the Hall-Moody Institute, is a chartered institution of learning at Martin, Tenn. Defendant Watters is its president, and the 10 other defendants are its "directors, trustees, teachers, and advisors." The school has a large out of town patronage, and it is essential that boarding houses be conducted to accommodate these students, as well as some of the teachers. Mrs. Hutton is a widow who makes a business of keeping boarders. In June, 1910, she opened a business of the kind in Martin. During that year one James Wilson became one of her customers. Some students did the same. Defendants offered no objection until after a personal difficulty had occurred between Wilson and defendant Watters. The latter then demanded that plaintiff dismiss Wilson. She refused. Because of this refusal Watters became her enemy, and the other defendants ranged themselves with him, and all formed a conspiracy to drive her out of business. Thereupon, from time to time during the years 1911, 1912, and 1913, as soon as plaintiff secured student boarders, or teacher boarders, the defendants, in prosecution of this purpose, caused these, plaintiff's customers, to leave her house, by threats to deprive them of the benefits of the school, or of their places, if they should refuse. By similar threats other persons were prevented from taking board with plaintiff; the defendants even going to the length of meeting trains and watching for new arrivals and deterring these from patronizing her house. The plaintiff is a person of good moral character, stands well in the community, and has always conducted a reputable establishment. The defendants, in setting on foot and prosecuting the conspiracy referred to, were not influenced by any motive of business rivalry, or competition, but acted as they did merely because of a feeling of ill will induced by plaintiff's refusal to turn James Wilson out of her house, and her refusal to permit Watters to dictate the price which she charged her customers.

The conspiracy was successful, and destroyed, or practically destroyed, plaintiff's business.

The damages are laid at $5,000.

The defendants interposed a demurrer purporting numerous grounds, but all resolvable into the single objection that the declaration stated no cause of action.

The trial judge sustained the demurrer, but the Court of Civil Appeals reversed that judgment, and the case then came to this court under the writ of certiorari.

We think the declaration stated a good cause of action.

Every one has the right to establish and conduct a lawful business, and is entitled to the protection of organized society, through its courts, whenever that right is unlawfully invaded. Such right existing, the commission of an actionable wrong is established against any one who is shown to have intentionally interfered with it, without justifiable cause or excuse. To establish justification, it must be made to appear, not only that the act complained of was otherwise lawful and performed in a lawful manner, but likewise that it had some real tendency to effect a reasonable advantage to the doer of it. But in order to determine the reasonableness of such act it must be considered from the standpoint of both parties, with a view to ascertaining whether the defendant has acted merely in the due exercise of his own right to carry on business for himself. If this be found in his favor, while he may have done the plaintiff harm, he cannot be adjudged to have done an injury in the legal sense; that is, a wrongful act in violation of the legal right of another. Whether the defendant was in the reasonable exercise of his own similar rights must, from the viewpoint stated, be determined by the court, or court and jury in each case as it arises, on the law and the evidence. A defendant cannot excuse himself by the mere fact that the means used were his own, his property, his servants. He cannot, with justification in law, use his property, or anything else that appertains to him, in such manner as to wantonly injure another. Still, it has been decided, by the weight of authority, that if the act complained of, being otherwise lawful in itself, had a reasonable tendency to promote ends advantageous to the defendant in the conduct of his own business, it cannot be correctly adjudged an illegal agency or operation by the fact that the doer of it was moved also by a feeling of ill will, or personal malice, towards the person against whom his act was directed (West Va. Transportation Co. v. Standard Oil Co., 50 W. Va. 611, 40 S. E. 591, 56 L. R. A. 804, 88 Am. St. Rep. 895; 62 L. R. A. 673, note; L. R. A. 1915B, 1180, note); but if the act is otherwise wrongful, such personal malice may aggravate the damages (Cooley on Torts [2d Ed.] pp. 832, 836).

In short, if an act be hurtful to another, intentional, and without legal justification, it is malicious in the true legal sense (19 Am. & Eng. Ency. of Law [2d Ed.] 623, note 4), therefore unlawful, and is actionable.

Of course it is wholly impossible to formulate a description which will cover all acts which are intentionally hurtful to another, and at the same time justifiable in law. As already said, each case, as it arises, must be determined on its own facts, and in the light of the principles stated. It is left in each case for the court, or the court and jury, according to the way in which the controversy is presented, to say whether the defendant's conduct complained of was, in view of all the circumstances, a reasonable and proper exercise of his right of self-protection, or self-advancement, both as to the substance of it, and the method of it. Huskie v. Griffin, 75 N. H. 345, 74 Atl. 595, 27 L. R. A. (N. S.) 966, 139 Am. St. Rep. 718; Dunshee v. Standard Oil Co., 152 Iowa, 623, 132 N. W. 371, 36 L. R. A. (N. S.) 263; Gott v. Berea College, 156 Ky. 376, 161 S. W. 204, 51 L. R. A. (N. S.) 17; Mogul S. S. Co. v. McGregor, L. R. 23 Q. B. Div. 598; Mod. Am. Law, vol. 2, pp. 327-336.

In the latter authority it is said, quoting 28 Law Quarterly Review, 67:

"The theory of justification consists in a proper adjustment and compromise between the two competing rights that are equally protected in law. It has been already observed that the enjoyment by a particular individual of the right of freedom, as to how he should bestow his capital and labor, is not absolute, but qualified by the existence of equal rights in the other members, to such an extent as to be made compatible with an equally free enjoyment of these rights by the rest of the community. In fact, every case of justification reduces itself to the question how far the rights of an individual can be so circumscribed in accordance with a general law of freedom as to leave an equal scope for the free enjoyment of the competing rights of his fellow men."

"But," said Lord Justice Bowen, in Mogul S. S. Co. v. McGregor, supra, "such legal justification would not exist when the act was merely done with the intention of causing temporal harm, without reference to one's own lawful gain, or the lawful enjoyment of one's own right. The good sense of the tribunal which had to decide would have to analyze the circumstances and discover on which side of the line each case fell. But if the real object was to enjoy what was one's own, or to acquire for one's self some advantage in one's property or trade, and what was done was done honestly, peaceably, and without any of the illegal acts above referred to, it could not, in my opinion, properly be said that it was done without just cause or excuse." Id. 618, 619.

Although, as indicated, the defense of justification arising in such controversies is a question for decision in each case, as concreted in its own peculiar facts, yet the precedents shed much light in the way of illustrating the principles involved.

In an early English case, decided during the reign of Queen Anne (Keeble v. Hickeringill, 11 East, 574), reported in full as a note to Carrington v. Taylor, 11 East, 571, 574, 577, it appeared that the plaintiff had prepared a decoy pond for the purpose of taking wild fowl. The defendant knowing this, and purposing to injure the plaintiff by frightening away the wild fowl accustomed to resort to the pond, discharged guns on his own land, and the wild fowl were thus driven away. It was held that an action on the case would lie for the damages thus occasioned. Holt, Chief Justice, said that if the defendant had set up another decoy on his own ground near the plaintiff's, and that had spoiled the custom of the latter, no action would lie, because he had as much liberty to make and use a decoy as the plaintiff; but when, without benefit to himself, real or intended, he successfully committed the act intending to accomplish the injury to the plaintiff, it was actionable.

In International & G. N. Ry. Co. v. Greenwood, 2 Tex. Civ. App. 76, 21 S. W. 559, it was held that a railway company was liable to the proprietor of a boarding house for having deprived him of the patronage of its employés by threatening to discharge them if they patronized him. It did not appear that any interest of the railway company was served, or any benefit to it effected, by such order.

In Graham v. St. Charles Street R. R. Co., 47 La. Ann. 214, 16 South. 806, 27 L. R. A. 416, 49 Am. St. Rep. 366, it appeared that the foreman of the railway company, without any purpose of advancing its interests,...