Western Union Tel. Co v. Watson

• Decision Date: 30 July 1894
• Citation: 21 S.E. 457,94 Ga. 202
• Parties: WESTERN UNION TEL. CO. v. WATSON.
• Court: Georgia Supreme Court

21 S.E. 457

94 Ga. 202

WESTERN UNION TEL. CO.

v.WATSON.

Supreme Court of Georgia.

July 30, 1894.

Delay in Delivery of Telegram—Remote Damage.

Where the plaintiff's alleged damages resulted, not from loss dependent on the state of his contract with his customer as that contract actually existed at the time of default by the telegraph company, but by reason of failure to obtain a modification of that contract according to a proposition which the plaintiff in tended to make, and which the customer would have accepted if it had been made, neither of them in fact knowing of the other's state of mind on the subject until it was too late to make the modification or agree upon it, the damages were too remote and uncertain to be the basis of a recovery for delay in delivering a telegram, and for exposure of its contents to the customer before delivery, thus causing the customer to take action contrary to the plaintiff's probable interest which otherwise he would not have taken.

(Syllabus by the Court.)

Error from superior court, Oconee county; N. L. Hutchins, Judge.

Action by J. W. Watson against the Western Union Telegraph Company. From the judgment rendered, defendant brings error. Reversed.

Following is the official report:

Watson sued the telegraph company for damages. The nature of his claim will appear from the report of the evidence hereinafter made. He obtained a verdict for $180. Defendant moved for a new trial, and the court passed a judgment that a new trial be granted unless plaintiff would write off all of the verdict in excess of $129.90. Such excess was written off, and defendant excepted. The grounds of the motion were that the verdict was contrary to law, evidence, without evidence to support it, and decidedly and strongly against the weight of the evidence. Upon the trial, Watson testified: "Am agent of the Brown CottonGin Company of New London, Conn., and as such sold to C. L. Pitner two seventy-saw gins, feeders, and condensers about the last of July or first of August, 1892, for $595. My commission on the sale would have been $238. I told Pitner the gins had been shipped; that I had a letter from the Brown Cotton-Gin Company, stating they would be shipped in a day or two. On September 2, 1892, I telegraphed them asking why the gins had not come, and in reply received the following telegram: 'Owing to press of orders, impossible to ship before Monday next. Will that answer?' signed by them. [The telegram in question.] When I read this telegram, I went at once to see Pitner at his mill, and there learned that he knew what was in the telegram, and had gone to Athens to buy other gins. I went to Athens that night, to see him in regard to the gin. and to make arrangements with him to allow me to put in a new gin I had on hand, to be used by him until the gin I sold him came; and he agreed to it, provided he could countermand the orders for gins he had made in Athens after he got there that evening. Before going to Athens to see Pitner, I went to the depot, and asked Gay, the agent, why he told Pitner what was in that telegram, and he said, 'The devil! I never thought about it being any harm.' I lost $238 by Gay, agent of defendant, telling Pitner what was in the telegram; or, if the telegram had been delivered within a reasonable time after it was received in theoffice at Watkinsvllle, I could hare seen Pitner, and could have made arrangements with him to wait until the gins came, and would not have lost my commission, as I did, by reason of the contents of the telegram being divulged and the delay in its delivery." There...