St. Louis & S.F.R. Co. v. Leger Mill Co.
| Decision Date | 15 February 1916 |
| Docket Number | 4933. |
| Citation | 155 P. 599,53 Okla. 127,1916 OK 203 |
| Parties | ST. LOUIS & S. F. R. CO. v. LEGER MILL CO. |
| Court | Oklahoma Supreme Court |
Syllabus by the Court.
Where an action between a shipper and a railroad company to enforce a compromise and settlement of a certain damage case between the same parties, which, it was alleged, was agreed upon by counsel for the respective parties, was tried upon the theory that it was governed by the general law applicable to the power of attorneys to settle or compromise actions on behalf of clients, it is not to be presumed that when local counsel for the railroad and its attorney for the state assume the right to exercise such power, and do exercise it, this was done without lawful authority; and slight evidence, in such a case, will be sufficient to take the case to the jury on that question.
Evidence examined, and held sufficient to take to the jury the question of whether local counsel for the railroad was authorized, by its attorney for Oklahoma, to compromise the action for damages, and whether the local counsel, and the attorney for Oklahoma, were clothed with the power they assumed to exercise.
Instructions to the jury examined, and held to be substantially correct.
"Ratification" is equivalent to an original grant of authority. The situation of the parties is the same as if the plaintiff had induced the contract in the first instance, through an agent duly appointed for the purpose. Proof of ratification includes proof of agency and authority, and may be made under a pleading charging the ratified act to be that of the principal.
After an examination of the entire record, it does not appear that the errors complained of, based upon misdirection of the jury, or the improper admission or rejection of evidence have probably resulted in a miscarriage of justice, or constitute a violation of any constitutional or statutory right.
Error from District Court, Jackson County; Frank Mathews, Judge.
Action by the Leger Mill Company against the St. Louis & San Francisco Railroad Company, a corporation. Judgment for plaintiff, and defendant brings error. Affirmed.
W. F Evans, of St. Louis, Mo., and R. A. Kleinschmidt and J. H Grant, both of Oklahoma City, for plaintiff in error.
A. E. Helm, of Topeka, Kan., and Everett Petry, of Altus (Chester I. Long and A. M. Cowan, both of Wichita, Kan., of counsel), for defendant in error.
This was an action, commenced by the defendant in error, plaintiff below, against plaintiff in error, defendant below, for the purpose of enforcing a compromise and settlement which, it was alleged, was agreed upon by counsel for the respective parties in an action for damages between the same parties, theretofore pending in the United States District Court for the Western District of Oklahoma. Upon trial to a jury there was verdict for the plaintiff, upon which judgment was duly rendered, to reverse which this proceeding in error was commenced.
Hereafter the parties will be designated "plaintiff" and "defendant," respectively, as they appeared in the trial court.
The grounds for reversal which we deem it necessary to notice in detail may be summarized as follows: (1) The trial court erred in overruling the motion for a directed verdict in favor of said defendant; (2) the trial court erred in admitting certain incompetent, irrelevant, and immaterial testimony offered in behalf of said plaintiff; (3) the trial court erred in giving to the jury certain instructions over the objection of the defendant; (4) the trial court erred in refusing to give certain instructions requested by the defendant.
As there seems to have been no serious controversy between the parties in the court below as to the general law governing the power of attorneys to compromise their clients' cases, it is sufficient to say of the first assignment of error that we have examined the evidence contained in the record before us with care, and are of the opinion that it was sufficient to take to the jury the question whether Stevens, the local counsel of the company in charge of the damage suit, was authorized by Kleinschmidt, its "attorney for Oklahoma," to compromise and settle the same, and whether Stevens and Kleinschmidt were clothed with the power they assumed to exercise. In this court counsel for plaintiff contend that a general employment of a lawyer by a corporation to act for it in all legal matters is different than a special employment in a particular matter, and cite in support thereof the following authorities: Vogemann v. American Dock & Trust Co., 131 A.D. 216, 115 N.Y.S. 741, affirmed in 198 N.Y. 586, 92 N.E. 1105; Cochburn v. Commercial Men's Ass'n, 163 Iowa, 28, 143 N.W. 1006; Cross v. A., T. & S. F. Ry. Co., 141 Mo. 132, 42 S.W. 675. As the trial court seems not to have recognized a difference, but submitted the case to the jury under the general rule, which was more favorable to the defendant, it is not necessary to pass upon that question in this case. In the case of Railroad v. Scott, 72 Tex. 70, 10 S.W. 99, 13 Am. St. Rep. 758, where the general rule, as in the trial court in the case at bar, was applied to a railroad case, it was held:
"While an attorney, by virtue of his employment, has not authority to make a compromise of an action he is employed to prosecute or defend, it is not to be presumed, when one so situated assumes the right to exercise such a power, and does exercise it, that this was done without lawful authority; and but slight evidence, in such a case, may be sufficient to authorize the belief that he was clothed with all the power he assumed to exercise."
This seems to us to be a just and reasonable view to take of the evidence in examining it for the purpose of determining whether the trial court erred in overruling the motion of the defendant for a directed verdict.
Under its next assignment of error, the defendant complains of instruction No. 6,, which reads as follows:
"You are further instructed that a compromise and settlement, when full and complete and clearly made, operates as a merger of and bars all right to recover on all claims and causes of action included therein, and the rights of the parties are thereafter fixed and limited by the compromise and agreements made and accepted by and between the parties to said compromise, and where one of the parties to said compromise proposes to accept an amount less than the full amount claimed by him, and the other party to said compromise accepts such proposition and agrees to pay such sum as a compromise and settlement of the controversy, such proposition and acceptance constitute a valid contract and agreement between the parties which may be enforced the same as other agreements."
The ground of complaint is that this instruction was not predicated upon any issue in the case raised by the pleadings. It seems to us that this position is wholly untenable. The theory of the plaintiff's case is that he made a settlement and compromise with the defendant, which the defendant thereafter declined to carry out. Whether there was a settlement or not was the identical issue in the case and the purpose of the instruction was merely to inform the jury as to the law governing the effect of a compromise, if they...
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