Western Union Telegraph Co. v. Jennings

• Decision Date: 28 February 1916
• Docket Number: 17598
• Court: Mississippi Supreme Court
• Parties: WESTERN UNION TELEGRAPH CO. v. JENNINGS

70 So. 830

110 Miss. 673

WESTERN UNION TELEGRAPH CO. v. JENNINGS

No. 17598

Supreme Court of Mississippi

February 28, 1916

APPEAL from the circuit court of Simpson county. HON. W. H. HUGHES Judge.

Suit by Henderson Jennings against the Western Union Telegraph Company. From a judgment for plaintiff, defendant appeals.

The facts are fully stated in the opinion of the court.

Judgment reversed, and case dismissed.

Street & Street, for appellant.

J. B Sullivan, for appellee.

OPINION

SYKES J.

This is a suit for damages by the appellee, Henderson Jennings, against the Western Union Telegraph Company, based upon the following facts, viz.:

The appellee and another young man were given employment by the proper employee of the Western Union Telegraph Company at St. Louis, Mo., and were sent to Tipton, Mo., at a salary each of forty dollars a month. They were to work as linemen of the appellant company, but state that they were put to work digging holes which they did not consider proper work for linemen, and for this reason, after working two and one half days, they quit and went back to St. Louis, Mo., where the agent of the company who had employed them, viz., one Mr. Sharp, lived. Shortly after their arrival in St. Louis the appellee called up, over the telephone, Mr. Sharp and stated to him that the foreman at Tipton, Mo., had not given them line work, but had put them to digging holes, and that for this reason they had quit. Appellee stated that Sharp replied: "If you and Foster cannot dig holes for the Western Union Telegraph Company, go and scratch for a job." Appellee then asked him what he meant, and Sharp replied: "If you and Foster can't dig holes for the Western Union Telegraph Company, go to hell." Suit was instituted in the circuit court of Simpson county for two thousand, five hundred dollars damages. No actual damages were proven. The jury returned a verdict for appellee for one hundred and fifty dollars, evidently assessed as punitive damages under the instructions.

The alleged tort upon which this cause of action is predicated occurred in the state of Missouri, and for this reason the law of that state governs as to whether or not the appellee has a cause of action. Pullman Palace Car Co. v. Lawrence, 74 Miss. 782, 22 So. 53.

In Missouri, actual damages must have been sustained as a basis for the recovery of punitory damages, and in the absence of any actual damages no punitive damages may be recovered.

The above rule is fully set forth in the case of Hoagland v. Forest Park Highlands Amusement Co., 170 Mo. 335, 70 S.W. 878, 94 Am. St. Rep. 740. From this decision we make the following quotation:

"It is claimed that the judgment should be reversed upon the ground that the jury by their verdict gave the plaintiff no compensatory damages, while they assessed in his favor punitive or exemplary damages. . . . It is held in 1 Sutherland on Damages (2d Ed.) section 406, and in Kiff v. Youmans, 86 N.Y. 324, 40 Am. Rep 543, Stacy v. Portland Pub. Co., 68 Me. 279, Freese v. Tripp, 70 Ill. 496, Maxwell v. Kennedy, 50 Wis. 645, 7...