Magruder v. Cumberland Telephone and Telegraph Company
| Decision Date | 25 May 1908 |
| Citation | 92 Miss. 716,46 So. 404 |
| Court | Mississippi Supreme Court |
| Parties | JAMES H. MAGRUDER v. CUMBERLAND TELEPHONE AND TELEGRAPH COMPANY |
March 1908
FROM the circuit court of, first district, Hinds county, HON DAVID M. MILLER, Judge.
Magruder appellant, was plaintiff in the court below; the telephone company, appellee, was defendant there. From a judgment in defendant's favor the plaintiff appealed to the supreme court. The facts are stated in the opinion of the court.
Affirmed.
Lowry & Lowry, for appellant.
There is no reason why the law as to rent and tolls of the Cumberland Company should be different from the law pertaining to land or house rentals, or any other character of rentals. It takes two persons to make a contract and in the ordinary transactions of life, unless there is a contract to the contrary, rents are paid and are payable where the debtor resides.
Where land is rented for a money rent, the landlord presents his bill to the tenant unless there be a contract to the contrary. If the rent is to be paid in the product of the land, the products are delivered where made in the absence of a contract to the contrary.
The Cumberland Telephone Company assumed to make contracts with its patrons by publishing a little notice and enforcing it with such of the patrons as it deemed proper.
The inconvenience and financial loss sustained by the cutting cut of a telephone seem a matter of indifference to appellee. It is within the knowledge of every man, whatever his vocation may be, that a telephone has become a necessity in the home, the counting room, the office of the lawyer or doctor, indeed in every character of business, and when one is deprived of its service, it entails inconvenience, hardships, and pecuniary loss.
Harris & Powell, for appellee.
The case in a nut-shell is simply this:--The company concluded to dispense with collectors, and, two weeks before the rule was to go into operation, sent notices to its customers, among whom was Magruder. The appellant took it into his head that the company had no right to do this, and that the creditor must come to him, and that it was not his duty to go to his creditor to settle his bills. After he was in default for ten days he was notified that if his bill was not paid within three days the company would conclude that he wished to discontinue the service, and would plug him out. He still refused to pay, and he was plugged out. The testimony shows that his telephone was never taken out of his house, but his service was discontinued, and it does seem also that afterwards the bills were sent to his office and that he did pay them, but this was a matter that the company was not compelled to do, we insist, and the fact that. it was done in his instance does not affect the question as to the legal right of the company to discontinue the service if he did not pay after he had been amply notified what the consequences would be.
In the first place the telephone company was not under legal obligation at any time to send out collectors to collect bills. Of course it could be said that the party who had relied upon this custom would be entitled to notice of its discontinuance, but in this case Magruder was amply and fully notified that the custom would be discontinued, and after the custom had been discontinued he was courteously notified that his bill was overdue and that if he did not pay it the company would plug him out. There is certainly no unreasonableness in this regulation, and if the regulation was a reasonable one, the company had a right to make it, and certainly a right to enforce it. Magruder was simply mistaken as to what he supposed to be his legal rights. The fact that the company had for a number of years put itself to the expense and trouble of sending out collectors, did not impose upon it any legal obligation to continue to do so. "A favor extended does not ripen into a right." Dixon v. Railroad Co., 61 Miss. 119.
The general rule is well settled that a debtor must search out his creditor to pay. It is hardly necessary, we take it, to cite authorities on this point. 18 Am. & Eng. Ency. of Law (1st ed.), 198; 2 Parsons on Contracts, 636; 39 Am. Dig., 19.
That a telephone company has a right to plug out the...
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