Jones v. Western Union Tel. Co.

• Decision Date: 21 February 1905
• Parties: JONES v. WESTERN UNION TELEGRAPH CO.
• Court: South Carolina Supreme Court

50 S.E. 198

70 S.C. 539

JONES v. WESTERN UNION TELEGRAPH CO.

Supreme Court of South Carolina

February 21, 1905

Appeal from Common Pleas Circuit Court of Union County; Townsend Judge.

Action by William W. Jones against the Western Union Telegraph Company. From an order refusing to strike out certain allegations in the complaint, defendant appeals. Modified.

Evans & Finley, for appellant. V. E. De Pass and Stanyarn Wilson, for respondent.

GARY A. J.

This is an appeal from an order refusing a motion to strike out certain allegations of the complaint as irrelevant. Those allegations are italicized in the respective paragraphs containing them, as follows:

"(3) That on the 16th day of February, 1904, the plaintiff, being at Whitmire, S. C., received from his father, at Lockhart, S. C., a telegraph message announcing that the brother of plaintiff's wife was dead plaintiff's wife being with him at Whitmire when said message was received.

(4) That about 8 o'clock a. m. on the 17th day of February, 1904, the plaintiff delivered to the agent at Whitmire, S. C., a certain telegram for transmission and delivery to his father, J. J. Jones, at Lockhart, S. C., in substance in the following words: 'Meet me at Union this p. m.,' and that the plaintiff then and there duly prepaid to the defendant's agent at Whitmire the toll or amount charged for the transmission of the said message, and the defendant's agent then and there received said message, and agreed and undertook to forthwith transmit and deliver said message to the addressee at Lockhart, S.C. That said message was written by said agent for plaintiff, who told the said agent that he wished the message to tell his father to meet himself and wife that evening with turnout at Union.

(5) That plaintiff, relying upon defendant's said obligation to transmit and deliver said telegram to his father, and expecting his father to meet them at Union, as requested in said telegram, hired a team at Whitmire aforesaid, for Union, on said day telegram was sent to his father, and in company with his wife and infant baby started for Union, reaching there about 4 o'clock of the same afternoon."

"(7) That if the said message which plaintiff addressed to his father, J. J. Jones, as aforesaid, had been transmitted and delivered promptly, or with reasonable dispatch, to the said J. J. Jones, by defendant, the said J J. Jones would have met plaintiff and his wife and infant baby at Union, as requested in said telegram, and with means of conveyance from Union to Lockhart."

"(10) That by reason of aforesaid negligent, careless wanton, and willful conduct of defendant in this behalf, plaintiff's father did not meet plaintiff, and by not doing so, and by defendant's negligent and wanton failure to notify plaintiff of said nondelivery, plaintiff was compelled to wait with

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