Welch v. Checker Taxi Co.

• Court: Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts
• Citation: Welch v. Checker Taxi Co., 262 Mass. 310 (Mass. 1928)
• Decision Date: 14 January 1928
• Parties: EDWIN WELCH v. CHECKER TAXI COMPANY. RUTH C. WELCH v. SAME.

262 Mass. 310

EDWIN WELCH v. CHECKER TAXI COMPANY. RUTH C. WELCH v. SAME.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Middlesex.

January 14, 1928

November 16, 1927.

Present: RUGG, C.

J., BRALEY, CROSBY CARROLL, & SANDERSON, JJ.

Agency, Existence of relation, Scope of employment. Evidence, Presumptions and burden of proof, Matter of conjecture.

Where, at the trial of an action of tort, against a company operating taxicabs for personal injuries received by the plaintiff in a collision with a cab of the defendant, it appeared that there was no passenger in the cab and that it was being driven by a man who gave his name as Devoe and who had an operator's license bearing that name, and there was evidence that a driver with that surname, whose first name did not appear on the defendant's pay roll, received a pay check for the day of the accident, but there were no records which would indicate the hours that he worked or his full name, a finding was not warranted that the cab was being operated by an employee of the defendant acting within the scope of his employment, and an ordering of a verdict for the defendant was proper.

TWO ACTIONS OF TORT, the first for damage to an automobile and the second for personal injuries. Writs dated, respectively, April 1 1925, and March 12, 1926.

In the Superior Court, the actions were tried together before Keating, J. At the close of the evidence for the plaintiff, the judge, on motion by the defendant, ordered verdicts for the defendant. By agreement of the parties, the action was reported to this court for determination, judgments to be entered for the defendant if the ordering of the verdicts was right otherwise, judgment to be entered for the plaintiff in the first action in the sum of $150, and for the plaintiff in the second action in the sum of $350.

M.R. Flynn, for the plaintiffs. J.F. Myron, for the defendant, submitted a brief.

BRALEY, J. These cases are...