Williams v. Detroit Oil & Cotton Co.

• Decision Date: 05 November 1908
• Parties: WILLIAMS v. DETROIT OIL & COTTON CO. et al.
• Court: Texas Court of Appeals

114 S.W. 167

WILLIAMS v. DETROIT OIL & COTTON CO. et al.

Court of Civil Appeals of Texas.

November 5, 1908.

Rehearing Denied November 26, 1908.

Appeal from District Court, Red River County; Ben H. Denton, Judge.

Action by C. C. Williams against the Detroit Oil & Cotton Company and others. Judgment for plaintiff for less than the relief demanded, and he appeals. Affirmed.

Dudley & Dudley and Chambers & Chambers, for appellant. Lennox & Lennox, for appellees.

HODGES, J.

The Detroit Oil & Cotton Company, one of the appellees herein, is a private corporation located at Detroit, and is engaged in the business of ginning cotton and crushing cotton seed. The appellee Geo. B. Dean is now, and was at the time of the transactions hereinafter detailed, the agent and general manager of the oil mill company. The appellant, Williams, was employed as a linter, whose duty it was to work at night in and around the gins operated by the oil mill. On the 23d day of December, 1903, the appellant was injured by having his hand caught in the saws of one of the gin stands, resulting in the loss of the thumb and two fingers. After the accident, Williams instituted a suit in the district court of Red River county against the oil mill, in which he sought to recover damages for his injuries. At or about the same time, he instituted this suit against both of the appellees, asking for damages against them "for false and fraudulent representations and deceit," which, he alleges, "was made and practiced by the appellees, by which they represented and stated to him that they had taken out, or would take out, an insurance or accident policy, in the name of and for the benefit of the employés of the Detroit Oil & Cotton Company, on the life and limbs of all the employés of said Oil & Cotton Company at work in its said oil plant and mill." The petition alleges that the appellees represented to its employés that if each of them, including the appellant, would pay out, or have deducted from his weekly wages due him from the company, the sum of 20 cents per week, which amount should be paid by the appellees as a premium on said insurance or accident policy, they would carry an accident or insurance policy for the protection of the employés against injuries such as might thereafter result while they were at work in and about the oil mill. It is also alleged that the appellant believed those representations to be true and permitted 20 cents per week to be deducted from his wages. The petition then describes the accident and its results, and says that after the injury the appellant, for the first time, discovered that the representations made to the effect that the appellees were carrying a policy of insurance for his benefit were false, and that they had not taken out, or carried, or paid for any kind of insurance whatever for the benefit of the appellant, or any of the other employés; but that they had used the money so retained out of the wages of the mill employés for the purpose of taking out an indemnity policy in favor of and payable to the Detroit Oil & Cotton Company, by which it was indemnified to the amount of $10,000 in case it had to pay a judgment rendered against it for the negligent killing of any one or more of its employés, and for the amount of $5,000 in case it had to pay a judgment rendered against it for injuries to any one or more of its employés not resulting in death. The concluding portions of the petition material to be considered in this connection are as follows: "That your petitioner was the first and only employé of the defendant corporation to be injured while at work in its said mill or plant, and that if defendants had expended the money retained from your petitioner and the other employés of the defendant corporation for an insurance or accident policy for the benefit of petitioner and other employés, and carried out their representations and promises in good faith, your petitioner would have received on said insurance or accident policy on account of and for his said injuries the sum of $3,000. Your petitioner alleges that by reason of the deceit and fraud of the defendants, as hereinbefore alleged, he has suffered damages not in common with the other employés of defendant, but to himself individually, in the amount of $3,000 actual damages. Your petitioner further alleges that said representations and promises of defendant were knowingly made, the defendants knowing the game to be false and the money so retained by defendant corporation out of the wages of your petitioner and the other employés of the defendant corporation was done for the purpose of oppressing your petitioner and the other said employés, the defendants and each of them then and there knowing that they were carrying no insurance or indemnity for the protection of your petitioner and the other of said employés." There was also a prayer for exemplary damages in the sum of $5,000. After the conclusion of the testimony and argument, the court instructed the jury that, if they found in favor of the appellant, they would assess his damages at such a sum as the evidence showed had been retained out of his weekly wages by the appellees, defendants below. A verdict was accordingly returned for the sum of $1.80. From the judgment entered thereon the appellant, Williams, has appealed to this court.

The assignments of error attack the charge of the court in restricting the latitude of the jury in assessing the damages to what had been retained out of his wages, claiming that the defendants below, having falsely and fraudulently represented to the appellant that they had taken out an accident policy for the benefit of him and the other employés, and having retained out of their weekly wages money to pay the premiums on said policy, should be required to make their representations good, as though they had given a warranty to that effect. It is also contended that the court should have permitted the jury to find exemplary damages in the event they should find in favor of the appellant on the issue of actual damages. In the investigation of this case we must regard the testimony from the standpoint most favorable to the appellant, inasmuch as the charge of the court was tantamount to a peremptory instruction that no other damages could be found under the evidence except that which was awarded. As to the representations made by Dean, the appellant testified as follows: "Mr. Dean said: `I have got you boys insured so that if you get hurt you will get something out of it. * * * I had you insured last year, but did not make you pay for it; but I find that other mills are making their men pay for it, and I thought I would do just like they did.' He just kept the money out of my wages. He (Dean) said he had taken out insurance, but I did not see the policy till after I was hurt. By `you boys,' he meant the hands working at the mill. He said he wanted each of us to pay 20 cents a week out of our wages as our pro rata toward paying the premiums on said insurance. I replied...