May v. Western Union Telegraph Co.

• Decision Date: 06 December 1911
• Citation: 72 S.E. 1059,157 N.C. 416
• Parties: MAY et ux. v. WESTERN UNION TELEGRAPH CO.
• Court: North Carolina Supreme Court

72 S.E. 1059

157 N.C. 416

MAY et ux. v. WESTERN UNION TELEGRAPH CO.

Supreme Court of North Carolina

December 6, 1911

Appeal from Superior Court, Guilford County; Daniels, Judge.

Action by Joseph L. May and wife against the Western Union Telegraph Company. From a judgment for plaintiffs, defendant appeals. Affirmed.

A right to enter on the lands of another does not authorize exercise of such right in a violent or insulting manner, regardless of the rights of others.

Where employees of a telegraph company lawfully entering on the lands of an individual to remove poles indulged during the prosecution of the work in loud, profane, and lewd language to the injury of the individual's wife, who was in a delicate condition, the company was liable for the injuries sustained by the wife, though the servants did not know of her physical condition.

King & Kimball, for appellant.

R. C Strudwick and F. P. Hobgood, Jr., for appellees.

WALKER J.

This action was brought to recover damages for a trespass on land. The plaintiffs, husband and wife, alleged that the servants of the defendant entered upon the land of John May, where they were living, for the purpose of removing telegraph poles, and while so engaged in their employer's business unlawfully and wrongfully violated the rights of the plaintiffs, as occupants of the land, by entering their home and accompanied their act of trespass by menaces of violence and the use of profane and vulgar words, and by other conduct and acts, which were unprovoked and nothing less than inexcusable, if not wanton. The defendants justify upon the ground that they had the right to enter in order to remove certain telegraph poles within the right of way of the North Carolina Railroad Company, or its lessee, the Southern Railway Company, and that John May, the owner of the land, licensed them to enter, and that, if they did not enter lawfully by his permission, they had the lawful right to enter and remove the poles by reason of the permission of the railway company to the telegraph company to do so; the locus in quo being within the right of way of the railway company.

We will assume, for the sake of the discussion, that the defendant by its servants entered lawfully upon the land, and yet this did not excuse them for what was done after their entry was made. The servants of the defendant were about their master's business when they committed the act of trespass, and they apparently did it for the purpose of advancing his interests, while doing the work assigned to them by him, in the prosecution of that work, and within the scope of their authority. There were many exceptions taken to matters of evidence, and others were addressed to collateral questions, and all of them subsidiary to the main point. (1) Was the defendant, by its servants, guilty of a trespass upon the plaintiff's premises? (2) If so, were the plaintiffs entitled to recover punitive damages in addition to those which are compensatory.

The defendant's lawful right of entry upon the land did not authorize it, or its servants, to do so in a violent and insulting manner, regardless of the rights of others. We do not think that we venture anything in asserting this to be a general statement of the law. There was evidence in the case to the following effect: That the servants of the defendant during the day in question, and while on the premises of John May, engaged in the work already described, indulged in loud profane, and boisterous language, and sang lewd and vulgar songs, to the terror of the feme plaintiff and others; that they yelled at the feme plaintiff and others in the house; that they invaded the house, and at one time seized a guitar which was there, and played on it, and sang ribald songs; that Stern, defendant's principal foreman in charge of said crews, went to the well near by, and, facing the open door of the feme plaintiff's bedroom, yelled at her and sang lewd and vulgar songs in her immediate presence and hearing; and that the noise and tumult, the profanity and vulgar songs of defendant's servants throughout the day, and while engaged in moving the poles in question were so great loud and boisterous as to be heard by many people in the neighborhood; that in the morning, standing on the railroad tracks, Jno. L. May, one of the plaintiffs, told Stern and May, the two foremen of defendant in charge of said crews, of the bad and precarious health of his wife, and that she was in the house, and asked them not to go upon the property of his father; that Stern replied that he had orders from the defendant to set the poles on John May's land, and that he would set them there regardless of witness' or any other man's wife, and that he did not "give a damn." There was further evidence as to the injury suffered by the feme plaintiff, resulting in a state of unconsciousness followed by great suffering and permanently impaired health, and as to the damage suffered by the male plaintiff in consequence of the defendant's wrong. The defendants entered at first lawfully, but afterwards abused their right of entry while in the prosecution of their work by acts and conduct which were plainly in violation of the rights of the plaintiffs, who were then in the lawful and peaceable possession of the premises. Conduct more reprehensible, under the circumstances, could not well be imagined. The feme plaintiff was in a delicate condition, and, in consequence of the violent and insulting manner in which the defendants invaded her home and even her private apartments, her health was greatly impaired. Defendant answers that its servants did not know of her physical condition, but this is no excuse. Their tortious acts were the immediate, natural, and proximate cause of her injuries. So far as the liability of the defendant for this wrong is concerned, it is not necessary that it should have contemplated the particular injury which the wrongful act produced, but it is liable if the wrong was of such a character as to be injurious in its natural and proximate consequences. It can make no difference in the view of the law whether it hurts one part or another of the person who is injured. The law will not excuse a defendant if in committing the wrongful act he aimed at the foot to wound, and killed by striking the head or the heart. His wrong is the same in law, and is actionable, though he may have missed his mark. He is in such a case presumed to have intended the natural and probable consequences of his act. Drum v. Miller, 135 N.C. 204, 47 S.E. 421, 65 L. R. A. 890, 102 Am. St. Rep. 528. In that case, distinguishing negligent from willful torts, we said: "In the case of willful or intentional wrongdoing, we have an act intended to do harm, and harm done by it, and the inference of liability from such an act may seem a plain matter, under the general rule of liability, and, assuming that no just cause of exception to it is present, 'it is clear law that the wrongdoer is liable to make good the consequences, and it is likewise obvious to common sense that he ought to be. He went about to do harm, and, having begun an act of wrongful mischief, he cannot stop the risk at his pleasure nor confine it to the precise objects he laid out, but must abide it fully and to the end.' The principle is commonly expressed in the maxim that a man is presumed to intend the natural...