Morin v. People's Wet Wash Laundry Co.
| Decision Date | 06 October 1931 |
| Citation | 156 A. 499 |
| Parties | MORIN v. PEOPLE'S WET WASH LAUNDRY CO. |
| Court | New Hampshire Supreme Court |
Transferred from Superior Court, Hillsborough County; Scammon, Judge.
Action by Alfred Morin against the People's Wet Wash Laundry Company. Transferred on plaintiff's exceptions to an order of nonsuit and to the exclusion of certain evidence.
Judgment for defendant.
Trespass to person. Trial by jury. The plaintiff was in the laundry business, and in a dispute between him and the defendant's servant over the plaintiff's right to certain laundry of which he had taken possession while he and the servant were separately collecting laundry, the servant undertook to obtain it from him by force and assaulted him. To an order of nonsuit and to the exclusion of certain evidence the plaintiff excepted.
Doyle & Doyle and Arthur B. Hayden, all of Manchester, for plaintiff.
Irving E. Forbes, of Manchester, for defendant.
The plaintiff offered evidence that the defendant's manager had instructed its drivers to use forcible methods to the extent of criminal conduct in competing with other laundries to obtain business. The evidence was rightly excluded. It did not appear that the defendant expressly authorized or ratified such instructions so as to make them its own. And the manager had no implied authority to give directions, or even permission, for conduct that any one would know was wrongful. Favor v. Philbrick, 7 N. H. 326. 329. 340. "No right can be founded upon a transaction which involves a violation of law" (Albertson & Co. v. Shenton, 78 N. H. 216, 217, 98 A. 516), and no rights can be predicated upon a relationship so far as it promotes unlawful conduct (Piper v. Boston & M. R., 75 N. H. 435. 437, 75 A. 1041). While one who engages another to do a wrong for him is liable to the person wronged under the principle that what one does by another he does by himself, the injured party has no redress against him when he has not countenanced the wrong and when the wrong is no part of the servant's employment. If the defendant's manager may be liable for the servant's conduct in pursuance of the directions, yet the directions do not tend to show the defendant's liability. The manager had no more authority to direct the commission of the wrong than the servant had to commit it. The directions did not help to make the servant's assault an act of service.
In Weir v. Watkins, 81 N. H. 130, 123 A. 122, the defendant was held under no liability for an assault upon his servant made by his agent in charge of running a part of his business and...
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...If any one of the conditions is not met, the employee's conduct is outside the scope of employment. Morin v. People's Wet Wash Laundry Co., 85 N.H. 233, 156 A. 499, 500 (1931) (although employee's motive in assaulting plaintiff may have been to serve his employer, assault was outside scope ......
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...acts of the servant under this doctrine is limited by the bounds of the employment (Danforth v. Fisher, supra; Morin v. People's Wet Wash Laundry Company, 85 N. H. 233,156 A. 499; Fletcher v. Meredith, 148 Md. 580, 582, 129 A. 795, 45 A. L. R. 474; Standard Oil Co. v. Anderson, 212 U. S. 21......
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...in part, by a purpose to serve the principal." Restatement (Second) of Agency §§ 228(1)(a), (c) (1958). See Morin v. People's Wet Wash Laundry Co., 85 N.H. 233, 156 A. 499 (1931) (assault). Obviously, neither O'Neill nor Murphy was authorized to perform acts of sexual harassment, and it is ......
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...the use of force and duties similar to those involved in the instant case is well recognized in the cases. See Morin v. People's Wet Wash Laundry, 85 N.H. 233, 156 A. 499; State ex rel. Gosselin v. Trimble, 328 Mo. 760, 41 S.W.2d It is not sufficient that the battery is due to anger arising......