Scott v. American Express Co.

• Decision Date: 18 June 1921
• Docket Number: No. 2903.,2903.
• Parties: SCOTT v. AMERICAN EXPRESS CO.
• Court: Missouri Court of Appeals

233 S.W. 492

SCOTT v. AMERICAN EXPRESS CO.

No. 2903.

Springfield Court of Appeals. Missouri.

June 18, 1921.

Rehearing Denied August 9, 1921.

Appeal from Circuit Court, Pemiscot County; Sterling H. McCarty, judge.

Action by Elwood Scott against the American Express Company. Judgment for plaintiff, and defendant appeals. Reversed.

N. O. Hawkins, of Caruthersville, for appellant.

Ward & Reeves, of Caruthersville, for respondent.

COX, P. J.

Action to recover $1,000 as a reward alleged to have been offered by appellant for "first information leading to the arrest and conviction" of each of two men who robbed an express messenger on a train between Dyersburg, Tenn., and Hickman, Ky., on October 18, 1917. Verdict for plaintiff, and defendant has appealed.

An agreed statement of facts covering a part of the facts in the case was filed, from which it appears: That the robbery of the express messenger was committed by two men, then unknown. A reward of $1,000 for first information leading to the arrest and conviction of each of these men, or $2,000 for both, was offered jointly by the Memphis & Gulf Railroad Company and the American Express Company. That the American Express Company which joined in this offer of reward was a joint-stock company. Afterward the parties interested in this jointstock company formed the defendant corporation by the same name, and took over all the assets and continued the business of the joint-stock company. One Will Buntyn was tried in the circuit court in Dyer county, Tenn., on a charge of being one of the parties who robbed the express messenger, and was convicted. After his conviction, he took an appeal to the Supreme Court of Tennessee, and was liberated on bond pending that appeal. Before his case was reached on the Supreme Court docket, he died. This suit to recover the reward for his arrest and conviction was filed after his death. The plaintiff offered evidence tending to show that he had performed services which would entitle him to the reward, if the defendant were liable therefor when he filed his suit.

The appellant contends that a demurrer to the evidence should have been sustained for several reasons, among which is the following: That Buntyn having died pending his appeal, his death abated the proceedings against him, and there was therefore no final conviction.

If the appeal of Buntyn and his death pending that appeal to the Supreme Court abated the proceedings in such a sense as to take away from the verdict of the jury and the sentence of the trial court thereon their character as a conviction of Buntyn under the terms of the offer of reward, then plaintiff's cause of action never accrued, and the judgment should have gone for defendant in this case. In civil actions, the judgment of the trial court remains in force as a valid judgment, though its enforcement may be suspended by giving bond, and the death of a party pending an appeal does not ordinarily abate or destroy the cause of action. In criminal cases, however, the death of the defendant pending an appeal from a judgment of conviction abates the prosecution or cause of action entirely. Town of Carrolltown v. Rhomberg, 78 Mo. 547; State v. Perrine, 56 Mo. 602.

Buntyn's death pending his appeal from a judgment of conviction against him abated the prosecution and cause of action against him for the alleged crime of which he had been convicted in the trial court, and for that reason, plaintiff's cause of action never finally accrued. The offer of the reward and plaintiff's services in procuring the arrest and conviction of Buntyn constituted a contract which is to be construed by the same rules as any other contract. Hoggard v. Dickerson, 180 Mo. App. 70, 165 S. W. 1135.

The contract must be given a reasonable construction,...