Postal Telegraph Cable Co. v. Beal
| Citation | 159 Ala. 249,48 So. 676 |
| Parties | POSTAL TELEGRAPH CABLE CO. v. BEAL. |
| Decision Date | 04 February 1909 |
| Court | Alabama Supreme Court |
Appeal from Tuscaloosa County Court; Henry B. Foster, Judge.
Action by John Beal, Jr., against the Postal Telegraph Cable Company. Judgment for plaintiff, and defendant appeals. Affirmed.
Vandegraaft & Sprott, for appellant.
Henry Fitts, for appellee.
The plaintiff, while engaged in mining coal near Sydney, Ala was severely burned in an explosion which occurred in the mine on the 3d day of June, 1907. At 2 p. m. of the following day, at plaintiff's request, William James (through a Mr Henderson) delivered to the defendant company's telegraph office in the city of Birmingham, Ala., a message to be transmitted to plaintiff's mother, as follows, viz The toll was paid in Birmingham for the transmission of the message, and the telegram was received by the defendant's operator at Tuscaloosa at 2:06 p. m. the same day it was delivered for transmission at the Birmingham office. As soon as it was received by defendant's operator at Tuscaloosa, he committed it to one of the company's messenger boys to be delivered to the addressee. The messenger made an ineffectual effort to find Mattie Beal, and returned the message to the office about 45 minutes after he received it. Thereupon, and about 4 p. m. of the same day, the operator at Tuscaloosa wired to the sender a service message, to the effect that Mattie Beal could not be found in Tuscaloosa. William James received that message, and mailed to Mattie Beal a special delivery letter, notifying her of plaintiff's condition. This letter Mattie Beal received early on the morning of Thursday, June 6th; and she left Tuscaloosa at 10 o'clock on the same morning, reaching plaintiff's bedside that afternoon, "about two hours by sun," where she found him in a very bad condition--which condition, as the evidence tended to show, was due in large part to lack of some one to nurse him. The evidence tended to show that the telegram was mailed by the operator in Tuscaloosa to the addressee, and that it was received by her husband on the 7th of June. It also showed that the addressee was a negro woman living within the company's delivery limits in Tuscaloosa, and that she had been living there for a period of seven years next before the time hereinbefore referred to. The evidence further tended to show that the messenger boy was derelict in not making delivery of the message, and that, if it had been promptly delivered, plaintiff's mother would probably have reached him on the night of June 4th.
The action is ex contractu. Breach of contract, in the failure to deliver with reasonable dispatch, is alleged, and damages are claimed for physical pain and mental anguish, in addition to the toll paid for the transmission of the message. The assignments of error insisted upon relate to rulings of the court on the admissibility of testimony, to the action of the court in rendering judgment for the plaintiff, and to the overruling of defendant's motion for a new trial.
So far as the questions presented for decision are concerned, we are clear in our opinion that whether the relationship between Mattie Beal and the plaintiff was revealed to defendant's agents before or the time the message was delivered for transmission is immaterial, for the reason that the wording of the message was such as to herald its own importance and the urgency of prompt delivery, and charged the defendant company with notice of the relationship that existed between the parties, and, further, that as a natural consequence of a failure to deliver it plaintiff would be subjected to physical pain and mental suffering. Western Union Tel Co. v. Henderson, 89 Ala. 510, 7 So. 419...
To continue reading
Request your trial