United States Fidelity & Guaranty Co. v. Henderson

• Decision Date: 18 February 1927
• Docket Number: (No. 3339.)<SMALL><SUP>*</SUP></SMALL&gt
• Citation: 293 S.W. 339
• Parties: UNITED STATES FIDELITY & GUARANTY CO. v. HENDERSON et al.
• Court: Texas Court of Appeals

293 S.W. 339

UNITED STATES FIDELITY & GUARANTY CO. v. HENDERSON et al.

(No. 3339.)^*

Court of Civil Appeals of Texas. Texarkana.

February 18, 1927.

Rehearing Denied February 24, 1927.

Appeal from District Court, Upshur County; J. R. Warren, Judge.

Suit by W. C. Henderson and others against the United States Fidelity & Guaranty Company. Judgment for plaintiffs, and defendant appeals. Reversed and rendered.

June 7, 1926, the Security State Bank of Ore City was robbed of $2,367.10 by a man named Blasingame. At that time the bank was insured by appellant against loss by robbery, and appellant was offering a reward of $1,000 to any officer or employee of the bank who captured, "dead or alive (quoting), one or more persons undertaking to rob" the bank while it was so insured. Claiming that they captured Blasingame and were entitled to the reward, appellees W. C. Henderson and G. W. De Berry, who were directors of the bank, and appellee S. M. Berry, who was its cashier, brought this suit against appellant, and recovered a judgment against it for the amount of the reward offered.

At the trial, which was before the court without a jury, appellant insisted, and it insists here, that it was not liable as claimed against it, because it appeared from the testimony, it says, (1) that appellees were not officers or employés of the bank within the meaning of the offer; (2) that Blasingame was not captured while he was "undertaking" to rob the bank, but after the robbery thereof had been fully accomplished; (3) that appellees were not induced by reliance upon the reward to undertake to capture Blasingame and (4) that the capture of Blasingame by appellees was unlawful.

According to testimony of Miss Mabel Williamson, assistant cashier of the bank, the robbery occurred between 2 and 3 o'clock in the afternoon. Miss Williamson and her aunt, Mrs. C. E. Williamson, were the only persons in the bank when Blasingame appeared at a teller's window therein and said he wanted a check cashed. Miss Williamson directed him to the cashier's window, where he at once confronted her with a pistol in his hand and demanded that she turn the bank's money over to him. When she gave him the $2,367.10 he ran to an automobile he had left standing (with the engine running) in front of the bank and drove away in it. A man named Blevens, who was near the bank when Blasingame entered it, discovered it was being robbed and gave an alarm which attracted the attention of appellees. According to testimony of the latter, they were then sitting together on a bench in front of a drug store about 300 feet from the bank building, looking at a land map. Appellee Berry at once, when the alarm was given, ran to the bank, and appellees Henderson and De Berry ran to automobiles in which they drove after Blasingame. As Henderson passed the bank, Berry got into the automobile he (Henderson) was driving, and they followed Blasingame about 8 miles, when he (Blasingame) left the car in which he was riding and took to the woods, and appellees for a while lost sight of him. Berry then separated from Henderson and went to town in another automobile to telephone for dogs to use in trailing Blasingame. Henderson and De Berry continued their pursuit of Blasingame, and captured him a short distance from the place where he abandoned the automobile he was driving. Neither the pistol Blasingame had at the bank nor the money he took therefrom was found on him when he was captured, but the money was found several days later hidden in the woods where he was captured.

Seay, Seay, Malone & Lipscomb, of Dallas, for appellant.

Briggs & Davis, of Gilmer, for appellees.

WILLSON, C. J. (after stating the facts as above).

It was not disputed that appellees Henderson and De Berry, who captured Blasingame, were directors of the bank. Nevertheless appellant insists they were neither "officers" nor "employés" thereof, and were not entitled to claim the reward because the offer was only to such officers and employés. No doubt it is true that directors of a bank are not "employès" thereof, and in a sense (7 C. J. 545), are not "officers" thereof; but, in another and more general sense, we think they are such officers (In re Peninsula Cut Stone Co., 9 Del. Ch. 348, 82 A. 689; 7 C. J. 523; 3 R. C. L. 438), and that in this case Henderson and De Berry should be held to have been such officers within the contemplation of appellant when it offered the reward; for evidently its purpose in making the offer was to induce persons actively connected with the operation of the bank (and the directors were, to some extent at least) to resist attempts made to rob it, and in that way defeat or discourage such attempts and avoid liability it would be under in the event such an attempt was successful.

Another contention urged by appellant is that appellees were not entitled to claim the reward because it was offered for the capture of "a person undertaking to rob the bank" and not for the...