Mobley v. State

• Court: Georgia Court of Appeals
• Writing for the Court: RUSSELL, J.
• Citation: Mobley v. State, 13 Ga.App. 728, 79 S.E. 906 (Ga. App. 1913)
• Decision Date: 30 October 1913
• Docket Number: 5,184.
• Parties: MOBLEY v. STATE.

79 S.E. 906

13 Ga.App. 728

MOBLEY v. STATE.

No. 5,184.

Court of Appeals of Georgia

October 30, 1913

Syllabus by the Court.

In a prosecution for a violation of section 715 of the Penal Code generally known as the "labor contract act," the burden is upon the state to show that the hirer alleged to have been damaged has in fact sustained a loss capable of definite computation.

The "labor contract act" was not designed to afford machinery for the collection of debts by criminal prosecution but was intended to apply only to cases where punishment should be inflicted upon those who obtained money, or other advance of value, by fraud and with the intent to cheat and damage the opposite party to the contract. It is axiomatic that, where no loss is shown to have been sustained by a person alleged to have been defrauded, the act alleged to be fraudulent is not punishable as a crime.

The conviction in this case was wholly unauthorized.

Error from City Court of Millen; Thos. L. Hill, Judge.

Jule Mobley was convicted of violating the Labor Contract Act, and brings error. Reversed.

C. B Garlick, of Waynesboro, for plaintiff in error.

W Woodrum, of Millen, for the State.

RUSSELL J.

The record in this case to our minds develops a remarkable state of facts. In saying this we, of course, accord to the testimony in behalf of the prosecution the same preference which the judge (who tried the case without a jury) gave it and disregard entirely the defendant's showing before the jury so far as in conflict with it. The defendant was charged with a violation of the "labor contract act" (Acts of 1903, p. 90), embodied in sections 715 and 716 of the Penal Code, and on trial before the presiding judge, without a jury, was adjudged guilty and sentenced to serve 12 months upon the chain gang, without any alternative. A review of the evidence shows that the accused had contracted to serve as a farm laborer, or share cropper, with the prosecutor for 12 months from January 1, 1913, to January 1, 1914. He worked from January 1, 1913, until May 10, 1913, and during that entire period, according to the testimony of the prosecutor himself, received the sum total of $11.20, $10 of which was paid him in December, 1912, at the time the contract was made, and $1.20 being the sum paid in May, 1913, upon which the prosecution in the case at bar is based. The defendant was one of three share croppers with whom the prosecutor contracted at the same time, and, though the prosecutor contracted with each separately, it appears that the three were to jointly cultivate, in corn and cotton, in return for one-half of the crop they might by their labor produce, 70 acres or more on the prosecutor's plantation. According to the testimony the contract of the prosecutor with the defendant, as with each of his colaborers, made each of them what is ordinarily known as "croppers," and, as a legal result of this relation, the title to the crop was fixed in the prosecutor as landlord. Tolbert and Alonzo Wright, the two persons who, according to the testimony of the prosecutor, severally contracted with him to cultivate the two tracts of land jointly with the accused, so far as appears from the record, continued in service, and no complaint is made that they were not still laboring at the time of the trial.

The testimony does not show that the defendant did not work faithfully, barring lost time (probably caused by bad weather), during the four and a third months of his service under the contract, but the prosecutor testified: "On the 10th day of May he got $1.20 in money from me, of the value of $1.20. He told me he wanted the money, and I let him have it because he was working on a share crop with me. I would not have loaned the money if he had not been working with me. After obtaining the $1.20 Jule Mobley quit the crop and left and never worked any more in the crop. He has done no work for me since, neither has he paid nor offered to pay me the $1.20 back." The prosecutor further testified that the defendant left because he did not want to pay the prosecutor, and that he (the prosecutor) was damaged $1.20 and was damaged more than this because his crop suffered for want of work. He testified also that he paid the defendant's road taxes (amounting to $3), but since there is no suggestion that this payment was made at the request of the defendant, and since no one can, as a matter of right, make another pay his debts by paying them for him and then requiring that the sum advanced be repaid, the road tax is immaterial.

Leaving out of view the question whether the prosecution's case failed because of failure to prove that the accused did not have good cause for quitting the service of the employer with whom he had contracted (Johnson v. State, 13 Ga.App. --, 79 S.E. 179), for it is evident that the prosecutor's testimony upon this point is purely opinionative, without the statement of a single fact from which the court could for itself determine whether the conclusion reached was correct, the real question in the case is whether the record shows that the employer sustained loss. A citizen cannot be deprived of his liberty or convicted of crime upon suspicion that he has caused a loss or because of an imaginary loss. When loss is made the basis of a fraud alleged to be criminal, it must be proved to be an actual loss, definite in amount and capable of exact computation. It is no longer an open question that proof of actual loss is essential to authorize a conviction of the offense denounced in section 715 of the Penal Code. Millinder v State, 124 Ga. 452, 52 S.E. 760; Abrams v. State, 126 Ga. 591 (2), 593, 55 S.E. 497; Coleman v. State, 6 Ga.App. 398, 65 S.E. 46. On the direct examination, as we have already stated, the prosecutor testified that he was damaged in the amount of $1.20, which the accused obtained from him, and which he would not have "loaned" the accused but for the fact that he was in his employ, and that he also sustained some damage (not estimated) due to the fact that his crop had suffered for lack of...