Russell v. Palentine Ins. Co.

• Decision Date: 15 December 1913
• Docket Number: 16,198
• Court: Mississippi Supreme Court
• Parties: A. G. RUSSELL v. PALATINE INSURANCE CO

63 So. 644

106 Miss. 290

A. G. RUSSELL v. PALATINE INSURANCE CO

No. 16,198

Supreme Court of Mississippi

December 15, 1913

APPEAL from the circuit court of Warren county, HON. H. C. MOUNGER Judge.

Suit by A. G. Russell against the Palatine Insurance Company and another. From a judgment for defendant, plaintiff appeals.

The facts are fully stated in the opinion of the court.

Affirmed.

J. C Bryson, Anderson, Vollor & Kelly, and Hirsh, Dent & Landau for appellant.

Was not Klein in his conversations with Clark seeking to sell the Russell & Moore agency solely for the purpose of paying what was due to the Palatine Insurance Company by them? Was not the Palatine the owner of the agency? Were not the bonds referred to by him bonds given by Russell & Moore to the Palatine? In fact did not all that was said or done between Klein and Clark pertain to the business of the Palatine Insurance Company, and have particular reference to the collection of the amount due that company by Russell and Moore? Did not the conversation with Zeigler pertain also to the collection of what was owing by E. P. Jones & Co. (in which Russell & Moore were interested) to the Palatine Insurance Company? The answer to all these questions must be in the affirmative. Can it then be said that they do not tend to establish the agency of Klein to act for the Palatine? We take it that the court in excluding the testimony of Clark and Zeigler had in mind the line of decisions by this court in which it has repeatedly held: "That agency cannot be established by the mere declaration of the supposed agent." Kinnare v. Gregory, 53 Miss. 612; Memphis, etc., R. Co. v. Cocke, 64 Miss. 713; Southern Home Building, etc., Co. v. Butt, 77 Miss. 944.

As we conceive it, this line of decisions does not reach the facts of this case. Klien was not stating merely the fact of his agency, or relating the history of past transactions, but he was actually engaged in the service of the Palatine Company and his statements had reference to the immediate business on hand, and were, therefore, a part of the res gestae and in the nature of admissions against interest. As such they were admissible to show the scope of Klien's agency. Besides there was much other testimony tending to establish the same fact such as the records from the Insurance Commissioner's office, the letters from Janvier & Lee and the testimony of Moore and others. In such cases declarations are admissible as corroborative evidence of agency. In this regard we quote from 1 Ency. of Law (2 Ed.), 791, as follows "But after the fact of agency is established by other evidence, it is a well-settled rule that the declarations of an agent, made while acting within the scope of his authority and during the continuance of his agency in regard to transactions depending at the very time, may be given in evidence against his principal as a part of the res gestae; and it is the same whether the res gestae is one that is especially authorized by the principal's instructions, or one which the agent performs in the exercise of the general discretion intrusted by the principal."

In Eagle Iron Co. v. Baugh, 147 Ala. 613, 41 So. 663, the supreme court of Alabama said: "On an issue as to the existence of an agency, any declaration by the agent as to his authority is admissible, when other evidence exists from which authority may be inferred."

In Gazzam v. German Union Fire Ins. Co., 155 N.C. 330, Annotated Cases, 1912, ch. 362, the supreme court of North Carolina said: "The competency of the declarations of an agent of a corporation rests upon the same principle as the declarations of an agent of an individual. If they are narrative of a past occurrence . . . they are incompetent; but if made within the scope of the agency while engaged in the very business about which the declaration is made, they are competent."

We submit that the conversations between Klein and Clark, and Klein and Zeigler, tended to show that Klein was acting for the Palatine and fall within the rule of the authorities above quoted and were for that reason relevant and pertinent and therefore admissible.

As to Malice: When Clark could not be induced to purchase the Russell & Moore agency Klein became exicted and referred to the bonds that Russell and Moore had given to the Palatine and the fiduciary relation that existed or was supposed to exist between Russell and Moore and his company and suggested that criminal action could be taken if other means failed to collect the amount due. In this connection he said that Russell "was crooked," and that he could "send him and Moore to the penitentiary," that he was going "to make them pay" or words of similar import. Do not these expressions tend to show ill-will and bad feeling toward Russell? Undoubtedly they do. And were they not said in reference to the business of the Palatine Insurance Company? Clearly they were. For these reasons they were revelant and competent and the law makes them imputable to the company through Klein's agency and makes the company responsible for their legal consequence.

As to want of probable cause: Klein's statement to both Clark and Zeigler to the effect that he knew that the shortgage of Russell and Moore dated back to the failure of the Mississippi Home and their undertaking to save their customers harmless by the substitution of other policies demonstrated that Klein knew that Russell & Moore were not guilty of embezzlement, that the money that they owed his company was not money they had actually collected but merely premiums they had assumed but failed to collect for and were then unable to pay. This was not a mere detail of a past event but it was the statement of fact which at that time was in Klein's memory and as such was to be regarded by him in his dealings with Russell & Moore pertaining to the company or its business. It demonstrated that in the beginning of these transactions he was cognizant of a fact which precluded the idea of guilt as to either Russell or Moore and therefore showed that Klein was not actuated by a desire to see the law vindicated but solely for the purpose of collecting a debt due his company.

The criminal prosecution was a mere means to an end and that end was the collection of what Russell & Moore owed his company. This was the business of his company and whatever he did in reference thereto was and is imputable to it. Williams v. Planters Insurance Co., 57 Miss. 579, 60 Miss. 916; King v. I. C. R. R. Co., 69 Miss. 245 and 852; Richberger v. American Express Co., 73 Miss. 161; Rivers v. Y. & M. V. R. R. Co., 90 Miss. 196, 93 Miss. 557.

We submit that the testimony of these witnesses under the facts presented by the record was relevant and therefore admissible, and that it was reversible error in excluding it as to the Palatine.

McLautin, Arimstead and Brien, for appellees.

In debating the question of whether or not the Palatine Insurance Company directed or instigated the indictment of Russell & Moore, it necessarily brings into review the question of whether or not Klein was the agent of the Palatine Insurance Company, authorized to institute this prosecution, or whether it was within the scope of his authority, or had such action been ratified by the Palatine Insurance Company?

We deny, as a matter of law, that the special agent, authorized to establish agencies and to see after their proper remittances of premiums, thereby necessarily has the power to indict the local agent for which his principal would become responsible. No such conclusion follows: We respectfully submit that this case is controlled by the opinion of the supreme court of Mississippi in the case of Fisher v. Westmoreland, reported in 57 So. 563, decided December 18, 1911.

The above case of Fisher v. Westmoreland absolutely destroys, we respectfully submit, the whole argument of the appellants in this case in that they have offered no proof on the crucial point of showing the authority of W. B. Klein to bind the Palatine Insurance Company. They make no effort to show any special authority to institute the criminal prosecution against Russell & Moore; they make no effort to show that this prosecution was subsequently ratified, unless it be that their effort to submit interrogatories to the nonresident defendant, the Palatine Insurance Company, was an effort, if possible, to dig up a ratification. At any rate, no such ratification appears in any respect from these interrogations. Then the only remaining possible hope of their binding the Palatine Insurance Company by the act of Klein, is to claim that it was within the scope of Klein's authority as special agent without showing the court what authority Klein did have as special agent.

We, therefore, respectfully submit that the case falls flat on the failure of the plaintiffs to prove what W. B. Klein's authority was from the Palatine Insurance Company or Janiver & Lee, their general agents, so as to determine whether or not he was acting within the scope of his authority in presenting Russell & Moore to the grand jury. Any statement of Klein's in reference to threatening a prosecution can have no weight whatever in determining the scope of Klein's authority for this suit is bottomed on the proposition that a malicious prosecution had been started against Russell & Moore by Klein appearing before the grand jury and it makes no difference, if the court please, we respectfully submit, what threats Klein may have made about instituting a criminal prosecution if in fact and in truth he had no authority to do it, threatening to do it certainly would not give him the authority and could not, by any possibility bind the principal.

Counsel for appellant in their brief say that the Palatine Insurance Company was the owner...