Western Union Telegraph Co. v. Walker

• Decision Date: 17 December 1908
• Parties: WESTERN UNION TELEGRAPH CO. v. WALKER.
• Court: Alabama Supreme Court

48 So. 102

158 Ala. 578

WESTERN UNION TELEGRAPH CO. v. WALKER.

Supreme Court of Alabama

December 17, 1908

Appeal from Circuit Court, Hale County; B. M. Miller, Judge.

Action by Charles D. Walker against the Western Union Telegraph Company for the negligent transmission of a telegram. From a judgment for plaintiff, defendant appeals. Affirmed.

The complaint is in the following language: "Plaintiff claims of defendant $500 as damages, for that heretofore, on to wit, the 27th day of March, 1903, said defendant, a corporation as aforesaid, was in the control and operation of a line of telegraphs running through Hale county, Ala., and held itself out to the public on said day as willing and ready to transmit telegraphic messages over said line for all persons complying with its reasonable rules and regulations and who would pay it the compensation charged by it for the transmission of said message; and plaintiff avers that on the 27th day of March, one Robert Poellnitz, who, plaintiff avers, was the agent of plaintiff, for the purpose of sending said message, filed with the defendant, in compliance with its reasonable rules and regulations for transmission by it a message in words and figures substantially as follows 'Jesse Pauley, Myrtlewood, Alabama. Mail at Linden. River sixty-one and a half feet at Tuscaloosa rising foot an hour. Robert Poellnitz'--and paid to defendant the sum charged by it for transmitting said message, which sum said defendant received and still retains. And plaintiff avers that said message was delivered to said defendant at his office in Greensboro, Ala., on, to wit, the 27th day of March, 1903, by said Robert Poellnitz, and that the said defendant thereupon accepted the same for transmission to the addressee therein. And plaintiff avers that said defendant owed him the duty to promptly transmit and deliver said message, and he avers that said defendant negligently failed to deliver said message to said Jesse Pauley, the addressee therein. And plaintiff avers that said Jesse Pauley was the agent of plaintiff for the purpose of pasturing stock belonging to plaintiff. And he avers that said stock was pastured near the river, and that he had previously instructed and agreed with said Pauley that he would have said Pauley informed of the condition of said river, and instructed said Pauley in the event said river became dangerously high, to remove said cattle from dangerous proximity to said river. And he avers that said telegram was intended to inform said Pauley of the dangerous condition of said river, but that, on account of the negligent failure of defendant to deliver said message to said Pauley, he had no notice of the condition of said river, and did not remove said stock from the neighborhood of said river. And plaintiff avers that the river overflowed its banks on, to wit, the 30th day of March, 1903, and one yoke of steers, of the value of $100, the property of the plaintiff, then in the care of said Jesse Pauley, were drowned, to the damage of plaintiff in the sum of $100, for the recovery of which he brings this suit. And plaintiff avers that said loss and damage was occasioned by the negligent failure of the defendant to deliver said message to said Pauley, and that if said message had been promptly delivered to said Pauley said loss would not have occurred."

The following demurrers were interposed: "(1) It does...