Western Union Telegraph Co. v. Huff

• Decision Date: 24 April 1884
• Docket Number: 11,211
• Citation: 26 N.E. 85,102 Ind. 535
• Parties: Western Union Telegraph Company v. Huff et al
• Court: Indiana Supreme Court

26 N.E. 85

102 Ind. 535

Western Union Telegraph Company v. Huff et al

No. 11,211

Supreme Court of Indiana

April 24, 1884

Petition for a Rehearing Overruled Oct. 29, 1885.

From the Tippecanoe Circuit Court.

The judgment is affirmed with costs.

J. A Stein and G. W. Collins, for appellant.

T. B Ward and G. W. Galvin, for appellees.

OPINION

Howk J.

In this case, the appellees, Samuel A. Huff and Edward H. Brackett, the plaintiffs below, alleged in their complaint that they placed in the hands of appellant's agent, at its office in the town of Monticello, Indiana, a written dispatch, of which the following is a copy:

"June 20th, 1881.

"To Hon. John R. Coffroth, Lafayette, Indiana:

"Will you please send us, by first train, seventieth Ill's, containing Mill-burr and Cabbage-seed cases.

"(Signed) Huff & Brackett."

Which said dispatch was so placed in the hands of the said agent to be transmitted to the said John R. Coffroth, at the city of Lafayette, by the appellant; for the transmission of which the appellees, at the time the dispatch was so placed in the hands of such agent, paid the appellant the sum of fifty cents, the usual charge according to the appellant's regulations, as and for its compensation for such transmission, which sum was received by appellant in full for such compensation; and so the appellant then and there undertook and promised the appellees to transmit the said dispatch, without partiality and in good faith, to John R. Coffroth, at Lafayette, Indiana, under penalty of $ 100; but the appellees say that the appellant wholly failed to so transmit the said dispatch; that the appellant was, on the 20th day of June, 1881, an electric telegraph company, with a line of wires extending from the town of Monticello, Indiana, to the city of Lafayette, Indiana, and was then engaged in telegraphing for the public. Wherefore the appellees prayed judgment for the penalty of $ 100, etc.

The cause was tried by the court, and a finding was made for the appellees, and, over the appellant's motion for a new trial, judgment was rendered accordingly.

In this court, the first error assigned by the appellant is the overruling of its demurrer to the appellees' complaint. The grounds of demurrer were as follows:

1. Want of sufficient facts to constitute a cause of action.

2. Defect of parties plaintiffs, in this, that it does not show just relations between the plaintiffs.

3. Misjoinder of parties plaintiffs.

Of the first of these grounds of demurrer, it will suffice to say that the record shows the action to have been commenced before a justice of the peace. A complaint in such a case will be held sufficient if it will inform the defendant of the nature of the plaintiff's cause of action, and be so explicit that a judgment thereon may be used as a bar to another suit for the same cause of action. Hewett v Jenkins, 60 Ind. 110; DePriest v....