Newport News & M.V.R. Co. v. Griffin

• Decision Date: 13 June 1893
• Citation: 22 S.W. 737,92 Tenn. 694
• Parties: NEWPORT NEWS & M. V. R. CO. v. GRIFFIN.
• Court: Tennessee Supreme Court

22 S.W. 737

92 Tenn. 694

NEWPORT NEWS & M. V. R. CO. v. GRIFFIN.

Supreme Court of Tennessee.

June 13, 1893

Appeal from circuit court, Obion county; W. H. Swiggart, Judge.

Action by Robert Griffin against the Newport News & Mississippi Valley Railroad Company. There was judgment for plaintiff and defendant appeals. Reversed.

Moore & Wells and Holmes Cummins, for appellant.

L. S Parks and D. J. Caldwell, for appellee.

BRIGHT Special Judge.

In this cause the plaintiff below, Robert Griffin, sues the railroad company, who owns and operates a telegraph line, for damages in failing to send or deliver a telegram from the mother of defendant in error, addressed to him at Ream's station Tenn. The second count of the declaration avers that Mrs. C A. Griffin delivered to the railroad company's agent a telegram addressed to defendant in error, which gave notice on its face that "his father was worse, and in a dying condition, and to come, and bring a surgeon." This averment was substantially proved. The sender paid the toll on said telegram, the sendee paying nothing. The telegram was delivered to the agent of the railroad company at Obion station, Tenn., late on the evening of the 22d of April, and received by said agent, but from some cause was never forwarded to its destination at Ream's station. Upon the morning of the 24th of April the defendant in error, without having received the telegram, visited his father, reaching his beside on the morning of the 24th, about 9 o'clock. On the night of the 25th his father died. There was a verdict and judgment of $900 for plaintiff below.

The rule laid down in Wadsworth v. Telegraph Co., 86 Tenn. 695, 8 S.W. 574, is approved. We hold, under the reasoning of that case and the statute, (Mill. & V. Code, § 1542,) that defendant in error is an "aggrieved party," and is entitled to some damages; and, this being so, as said in the Wadsworth Case, above cited: "May in such case recover in addition such further sum as will reasonably compensate for the grief, disappointment, or other injury to her feelings, occasioned by such default of the company." It is true, in the Wadsworth Case the sendee paid for the telegram, and did not reach her brother before his death nor afterwards; while in the present case Griffin the sendee, did not pay the "toll" for the sending of the telegram, and did reach his father some 36 hours before his death. This latter fact would only go...