International & G. N. R. Co. v. Telephone Tel. Co.

• Decision Date: 21 October 1887
• Citation: 5 S.W. 517
• Parties: INTERNATIONAL & G. N. R. CO. v. TELEPHONE TEL. CO.
• Court: Texas Supreme Court

5 S.W. 517

INTERNATIONAL & G. N. R. CO. v. TELEPHONE TEL. CO.

Supreme Court of Texas.

October 21, 1887.

Appeal from district court, Hays county; L. W. MOORE, Judge.

Hutchison & Franklin, for appellant. Waelder & Upson, for appellee.

GAINES, J.

This was an action brought in the court below by the appellee against the appellant, to recover damages, actual and exemplary, for the destruction by appellant's servants and agents of a portion of appellee's telegraph and telephone line.

The first question presented is raised by the assignment that the court erred in overruling appellant's exception to so much of the petition as sought to recover exemplary damages. The plaintiff sued as a corporation; and appellee contends that a corporation can, in an action of this sort, recover only actual damages. In their written argument, in support of this position, counsel frankly admit that they have found no direct decision upon the point, either by our courts or the courts of other states or of England. It is argued, however, that such damages are never awarded solely by way of punishment, but are given in a proper case for the purpose of example and punishment, as a compensation for mental pain suffered by the plaintiff, by reason of the outrageous or oppressive conduct of the defendant; and that a corporation, being an artificial person, and having no mind to suffer, is incapable of receiving the specific injury upon which such damages must be based. It may be difficult to defend upon sound reasoning the doctrine of vindictive damages, (now so firmly intrenched in the common law,) upon the theory that they are allowed alone for the purposes of punishment, and the good of society; but admitting, for the argument's sake, that the position of counsel upon this point is correct, it must be answered that there are other elements of injury besides "the sense of wrong or insult" which afford a legal basis for exemplary damages; such, for example, as loss of credit, and expense of litigation. These injuries corporations may suffer as well as individuals; and hence we conclude that, when a malicious and oppressive trespass is committed upon their property, they have the right to claim such damages, the amount to be fixed by the jury, as in other cases, in some proportion to the actual damages, and the detrimental consequences to the plaintiff proved upon the trial.

With one exception, the declarations of Painter to R. J. Breckenridge, the admission of which is complained of in the second assignment of error, were properly admitted in evidence. Painter was in the employment of defendant, and the testimony shows that he was its agent, charged with the duty of removing plaintiff's poles from the right of way. The declarations were about a matter in the scope of his authority, and before the transaction to which they referred was completed. They tended to show that the defendant's officers or agents claimed that plaintiff's line was partly on defendant's right of way, and that they had determined to remove...