Sparks v. Atl. Coast Line R. Co

Citation95 S.E. 344
Decision Date09 March 1918
Docket Number(No. 9920.)
PartiesSPARKS. v. ATLANTIC COAST LINE R. CO. et al.
CourtUnited States State Supreme Court of South Carolina

95 S.E. 344

SPARKS.
v.
ATLANTIC COAST LINE R. CO. et al.

(No. 9920.)

Supreme Court of South Carolina.

March 9, 1918.


Gary, C. J., and Watts, J., dissenting.

Appeal from Common Pleas Circuit Court of Sumter County; George E. Prince, Judge.

Action by W. E. Sparks, as administrator of Eugene Sparks, deceased, against the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad Company and another. Judgment for defendants, and plaintiff appeals. Affirmed.

L. D. Jennings and A. S. Harby, both of Sumter, for appellant.

P. A. Willcox, of Florence, and Mark Reynolds and L. W. McLemore, both of Sumter, for respondents.

HYDRICK, J. Plaintiff brought this action for damages against the railroad company and L. C. Jones, one of its passenger conductors, alleging that the conductor, or some other agent of the company, threw plaintiff's intestate off a moving train and thereby caused his death. The jury returned a verdict against the railroad company alone, and the judgments were entered thereon in favor of plaintiff against the company, and in favor of Jones against the plaintiff. The company appealed from the judgment entered

[95 S.E. 345]

against it, but plaintiff did not appeal from the judgment entered against him in favor of Jones. On hearing the company's appeal, this court reversed the judgment against it, and ordered a new trial on the ground that the liability of the company was predicated solely upon the alleged wrongful act of Jones, and, as the jury had found in favor of Jones, thereby acquitting him of any wrongful act, the company was necessarily acquitted of any wrongful act done through the agency of Jones. 104 S. C. 266, 88 S. E. 739.

When the case went back to the circuit court, the company, by supplemental answer, pleaded the judgment in favor of Jones as a bar to the further prosecution of the action. The court sustained the plea in so far as the liability of the company depended upon the acts of Jones, holding that Jones and his alleged wrongful acts were out of the case, as the verdict and judgment in his favor amounted to an adjudication that he was guilty of no actionable wrong. But the court further held that, as there was an allegation in the complaint that plaintiff's intestate was thrown from the train by Jones, or some other agent of the defendant company, the judgment in favor of Jones did not preclude the plaintiff from proving that the death of his intestate was caused by the wrongful act of some other agent or servant of the company for whose act the company would be...

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