Vicksburg Waterworks Company v. Dutton
| Decision Date | 28 November 1910 |
| Court | Mississippi Supreme Court |
| Parties | VICKSBURG WATERWORKS COMPANY v. JAMES M. DUTTON |
October 1910
FROM the circuit court of Warren county, HON. CHARLES S. THAMES Special Judge.
Dutton appellee, was plaintiff in the court below; the Vicksburg Waterworks Company, appellant, was defendant there. From a judgment in favor of plaintiff for five hundred dollars, the defendant appealed to the supreme court. The opinion of the court states the facts of the case.
Judgment reversed.
J. C Bryson, for appellant.
The testimony in this case is not sufficient to warrant the submission of the question of punitive damages to the jury. There is no testimony tending to show malice, willful oppression or wanton wrong, and without such testimony it was improper for the court below to submit the question of punitive damages to the jury. Chicago, etc. R. R. Co. v. Scurr, 59 Miss. 456.
It will not be contended that there was any abusive, insulting or profane language used, or any threat made by the waterworks company employes, appellee's reliance for verdict being upon the simple fact of the cutting off of the water after his payment of water tolls.
The rule laid down in the text-books is clearly to the effect that punitive damages are not recoverable, regardless of the motive which actuates the party whose action is complained of in cases involving a breach of contract and nothing more with one exception, namely, contracts for marriage. 12 Enc. (2nd Ed.), 20; Southerland on Damages, par. 393; Hay v. Ganoble, 34 Pa. St. 9, 75 Am. Dec. 628. All of our cases do not seem to make this distinction and some apparently allow punitive damages for a breach of contract solely where the motive inducing the breach was willful or in reckless disregard of the rights of the injured party; but in each and all of the cases of this kind, there is an underlying duty imposed by law to do the things contracted for. While there is a duty on public service corporations to serve the public, it is only a duty to enter into a contract to serve, and when the contract to serve has been entered into and broken, it does not justify an award of punitive damages unless some duty imposed by law in addition to the duties covered by the contract has been likewise breached. This would narrow the field for the recovery of punitive damages to some extent and would probably exclude some of the cases in which this court has sustained the award of such damages.
If this court should consider this a case of punitive damages in view of all of the circumstances connected with it, the award was excessive and it was the duty of the trial court to cut it down on the motion for a new trial and having failed to do so it is now the duty of this court to do so.
Brunini & Hirsch, for appellee.
When the water was cut off at about nine o'clock of the morning, it became absolutely necessary for Dutton to supply himself with water for his machine shop. It was necessary for him to employ two of his men to carry up the water from the canal, some distance away, in order to keep his engines going. Dutton testified that the use of the muddy river water, thus taken from the canal, left a sediment in the engine, and caused him to have to take the...
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