Reaves v. Western Union Telegraph Co.

• Decision Date: 06 July 1918
• Docket Number: 10016.
• Citation: 96 S.E. 295,110 S.C. 233
• Parties: REAVES ET AL. v. WESTERN UNION TELEGRAPH CO.
• Court: South Carolina Supreme Court

96 S.E. 295

110 S.C. 233

REAVES ET AL. v. WESTERN UNION TELEGRAPH CO.

No. 10016.

Supreme Court of South Carolina

July 6, 1918

Appeal from Common Pleas Circuit Court of Dillon County.

Action by Joe Reaves and Annie Reaves against the Western Union Telegraph Company. From judgment for plaintiffs, defendant appeals. Affirmed.

Albert T. Benedict, of New York City, and Willcox & Willcox and S M. Wetmore, all of Florence, for appellant.

Joe P Lane, of Dillon, and L. D. Lide, of Marion, for respondents.

HYDRICK J.

Plaintiffs sued to recover actual and punitive damages for defendant's alleged negligent and reckless dereliction of duty in the matter of transmitting a sum of money from plaintiff Joe Reaves, at Dillon, to his wife, at Edgefield. In July, 1915, Mrs. Reaves was called from her home in Dillon to the bedside of her sick brother at Edgefield. He died on Saturday, the 10th, at 1 p. m., and at 3.25 p. m. she sent her husband the following telegram:

"Brother dead. Cannot get check cashed here. Mail thirty-five dollars on six o'clock train. Answer."

She had been told by the postmaster at Edgefield that, if the money was mailed on the 6 o'clock train at Dillon, she would get it the next morning about 9 o'clock. The telegram was sent over defendant's lines and was delivered within an hour. Being anxious to get the money to his wife as soon as possible, Mr. Reaves conceived the idea of sending it to her by telegraph, and went to defendant's office at Dillon, and asked that agent how long it would take to get the money to her at Edgefield by telegraph. He replied that she ought to receive it within 30 minutes. Thereupon at 4:35 p. m., he paid the agent $50 and the charges for transmitting it, and, at the agent's suggestion, telegraphed his wife that he had sent the money by telegraph. That message was promptly delivered, and Mrs Reaves went to defendant's office at Edgefield to get the money. The agent there told her that he did not know anything about it. She informed him of the circumstances and of her urgent need of the money, and asked him to help her to get it, and called several times afterwards to get it, but each time she received the same answer. A little later she telegraphed her husband that she had not received the money. On receipt of her telegram, he went to the agent at Dillon, who told him that, if the banks were closed, the money would be paid to her by check of the telegraph company, which was good anywhere, and would be cashed by anybody. Thereupon, at 6:30 p. m., he telegraphed his wife: "Go ahead and use telegraph check where you trade to merchant." But no check had been given to her. On the following Monday morning, she called at the Edgefield office three different times after 9 o'clock to get the money, with the same result as before. About 2:30 p. m. that day, the agent told her to go to the bank, and they would probably pay it to her. She then went to the bank, and received the money.

Defendant undertook to excuse the delay by showing: That Edgefield was not a money order office; that is, that defendant had some offices at which money sent by telegraph is paid in cash, or by check, and that Edgefield was not such an office. That this money was transmitted in this way: The Dillon agent wired the order to defendant's manager at Charleston, a pay order office, and he ordered defendant's bank there to wire its correspondent bank at Edgefield to pay the money to Mrs. Reaves. That, as the Charleston bank had closed for the day, when the order was received by defendant's Charleston manager, the money could not be forwarded until the Charleston Bank opened on Monday, though the Bank at Edgefield was open from 5 to 6 p. m. on Saturday.

Defendant moved for a directed verdict as to actual damages, on the ground that none had been proved, and as to punitive damages on the grounds (1) that such damages cannot be recovered in the absence of actual damages; (2) that as defendant was under no legal duty to transmit money by telegraph, same not being a part of its business as a common carrier, the contract to do so was a special contract between private individuals, for the breach of which punitive damages are not recoverable in the absence of fraud, of which there was no proof; and (3) that, in any event, the evidence does not warrant the infliction of punitive damages.

The court sustained the motion as to actual damages, but refused it as to punitive damages, and submitted the evidence upon that issue to the jury, holding, as to the first ground, that where there is evidence of a reckless or willful invasion of a legal right the law presumes sufficient actual damages to sustain a verdict for punitive damages; as to the second, that defendant, being a public service corporation, offering to perform the service in question for all the public alike for hire, was under a legal duty to perform it for plaintiffs, and therefore was liable to them in tort for a reckless, willful, or wanton dereliction in the performance of that duty; and, as to the third, that the evidence was susceptible of more than one inference, and therefore it was for the jury.

The ruling as to the first ground of the motion as to punitive damages is sustained on the authority of Jones v. Railroad Co., 108 S.C. 217, 94 S.E. 490.

As to the second ground, the precise point has never been decided by this court; but we think it was correctly decided. There is no doubt of the right of a common carrier to make special contracts outside the scope of his duties to the public; and he may make some special contracts relative to those duties, provided they are not such as are prohibited by the statute or public policy. Under such contracts, he is not held to the strict liabilities imposed by law upon common carriers, and therefore, in some respects at least, the rights of the parties under them are determined according to the rules applicable to contracts between private individuals. We have so held in numerous cases, some of which are cited by appellant, notably the recent case of Fair Association v. A. C. L. R. Co., 90 S.C. 436, 73 S.E. 790, where the railroad company made a special contract, outside of the scope of its general duties to the public. Nor is there any doubt of the rule that punitive damages are not recoverable for the mere breach of a private contract, in the absence of circumstances giving rise to a cause of action for fraud. Welborn v. Dixon, 70 S.C. 108, 49 S.E. 232, 3 Ann. Cas. 407.

But the rule is well settled that...