Legg v. Junior Mercantile Co.
| Decision Date | 06 March 1928 |
| Docket Number | (No. 6036) |
| Parties | A. H. Legg v. Junior Mercantile Company |
| Court | West Virginia Supreme Court |
Evidence Plaintiff, Suing for Debt, Has Burden to Prove, or Show by Stipulation, Reasonable and Substantial Basis for Judgment; if Alleged Debt Sued for, or Amount Thereof, is Left to Conjecture or Uncertainty, Judgment Should be for Defendant.
In an action for recovery of an alleged debt the burden rests upon plaintiff to prove by evidence or show by stipulation of fact some reasonable and substantial basis on which a judgment can be founded. If the alleged debt or the amount thereof is left to conjecture or uncertainty, the burden has not been carried, and judgment should be for defendant.
(Evidence, 22 C J. § 16; 23 C. J. § 1795.)
Error to Circuit Court, Fayette County. Action by A. H. Legg against the Junior Mercantile Company. Judgment for plaintiff, and defendant brings error.
Judgment reversed; entered for defendant.
Blue, Dayton & Campbell, Arthur S. Dayton and William F. Blue, for plaintiff in error.
Dillon, Mahan & Holt and Wm. S. Thompson, for defendant in error.
Plaintiff below, A. H. Legg, obtained judgment for $300.00 against the Junior Mercantile Company on agreed facts submitted to the court in lieu of a jury; and the mercantile company prosecutes this writ of error.
Plaintiff's claim is based upon metal discs or "scrip" which he purchased for value from unknown persons and which discs or scrip had been issued by the mercantile company in various denominational amounts aggregating a total of $300.00. On one side is the following:
"Master Metal Scrip 100 Ingle-Schierloh Co. Dayton, O. Pat Pend In Mdse Only."
and on the other side is the following:
Having purchased from persons who were unknown for value this scrip, plaintiff demanded payment from, the mercantile company in cash and was refused. Suit was instituted before a justice of the peace where judgment was rendered for the plaintiff, and on appeal to the circuit court judgment again was rendered for plaintiff by the court sitting in lieu of a jury on agreed facts. It is claimed by plaintiff that this scrip is payable in cash, notwithstanding the words thereon "Redeemable in Mdse Only," and that the issuance and redemption thereof is controlled by section 80, chapter 15-H, of the Code, as amended by chap. 87, Acts 1925, which makes it unlawful for any corporation, company, firm or person engaged in any trade or business either directly or indirectly to issue to any person employed by such corporation, company, firm or person in payment of wages due such laborer, or as advances for labor not due, any scrip, token, draft, check or other evidence of indebtedness, payable or redeemable otherwise than in lawful money; and if any such scrip be issued it shall be a promise to pay a sum specified therein in lawful money to the person named therein or to the holder thereof. The amendment to this statute in 1925 is not of importance in this case. It is agreed that the mercantile company did not issue the scrip involved in this controversy, or any other scrip, to any of its employees. But in order to bring this scrip within the purview and control of the statute, the substance of which is above set out, plaintiff claims that the mercantile company was in fact acting for and on behalf of the West Virginia Coal & Coke Company, a corporation organized for the purpose of mining coal, and that the scrip involved in the controversy was issued to the employees of the coal company and by them sold to plaintiff. The trial court evidently took that view, for in order to sustain the judgment it is necessary to hold that the mercantile company was in reality the coal company, and that the scrip was issued to the employees of that company and was transferred by them to plaintiff, the holder. It appears from the stipulation that the mercantile company was incorporated under the laws of this state in 1905 to conduct a mercantile business; that the coal company was incorporated under the laws of this state in 1917 for the purpose of mining coal. The coal company operates a coal mine near Glen Ferris in Fayette county, and the mercantile company conducted its mercantile business in the same town in the year 1926 when the scrip was issued. When the coal company was incorporated it acquired all of the stock of the mercantile company and has at all times since owned that stock except shares sufficient to qualify the directors. It appears that the mercantile company in the conduct of its business issued these metal discs to its customers indiscriminately, for instance, as change for cash, and the like. It was also a practice for it to issue scrip to those employees of the coal company who had assigned to it by written assignment wages then due or to become due from the coal company and which assignment had been accepted by the coal company. When the assignment of wages had been made and accepted the employees of the coal company would make purchases on the strength thereof and for the balance these metal discs were delivered to the employees; and at the next pay-day of the coal company the mercantile company would collect the amount so assigned in cash. Plaintiff Legg was never an employee of either company. It is stipulated that "the metal coin held by him (plaintiff), was issued by the Junior Mercantile Company either for change as to cash purchases, or upon assignment of wages as aforesaid to persons other than the plaintiff, and the plaintiff obtained such metal coin directly or indirectly from such persons by purchase or assignment thereof for valuable consideration as aforesaid. The persons to whom the coin, now owned and held by plaintiff, was originally issued are now unknown and may, or may not have been employees of the "West Virginia Coal & Coke Company." These are the material stipulated facts on which the judgment is based.
The mercantile company argues that these facts do not bring the transaction within the scope of sec. 80, chap. 15-H, commonly known as the "Scrip Law", and therefore that statute has no application; whereas the plaintiff says that by purchasing the entire stock of the mercantile company, the coal company was attempting to indirectly do that which it could not do under the statute, and falls within its purview. Plaintiff contends that although the two corporations were distinct and organized for different purposes, yet the legal fiction of distinct corporate existence should be disregarded under the stipulation of facts, and that the mercantile company should be considered merely an instrumentality or agent of the coal corporation for the purpose of conducting and...
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Long v. City of Weirton
...581. While the foregoing proposition has been employed in at least four subsequent decisions of this Court: Legg v. Junior Mercantile Company, 105 W.Va. 287, 142 S.E. 259 (1928); Antonowich v. Home Life Insurance Company, 116 W.Va. 155, 179 S.E. 601 (1935); Burk v. Huntington Development & ......
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