Wilson v. Clark

• Decision Date: 26 April 1892
• Court: North Carolina Supreme Court
• Parties: Wilson v. Clark et al.

14 S.E. 962

110 N.C. 364

Wilson

v.Clark et al.

Supreme Court of North Carolina.

April 26, 1892.

Master and Servant — When Relation Exists —-Negligence.

In an action against several persons as the "proprietors and builders" of a church for personal injuries alleged to have been received by plaintiff, while working on the church, by reason of defendants' negligence in the construction of the building, where the evidence shows that defendants were not proprietors of the building, and had no interest in it either as owners or contractors, but that some of them were merely commissioners and members of the church, and that the others were engaged as laborers in constructing the building, plaintiff being employed to work, not for defendants, but for the church, plaintiff cannot recover.

Appeal from superior court, Buncombe county; Philips, Judge.

Action by J. C. Wilson against E. L. Clark and others for personal injuries. From a judgment of nonsuit plaintiff appeals. Affirmed.

The other facts fully appear in the following statement by Merrimon.C. J.:

The plaintiff brought this act Ion against the defendants as "the proprietors and builders of a certain house and building in the county of Buncombe, known as 'Hominy Baptist Church, 'to recoverdam-ages fo. injury sustained by him, occasioned by their neglect, while he, as their employe and laborer, was at work on the said house, " etc. The defendants denied the material allegations of the complaint. On the trial, at the close of taking evidence, the court intimated to counsel for the plaintiff "that upon all the evidence the plaintiff was not entitled to recover, and the jury would be so instructed;" whereupon the plaintiff submitted to a judgment of nonsuit, and appealed to this court.

W. H. Malone, for appellant.

T. F. Davidson, for appellees.

Merrimon, C. J., (after statingthe facts.) Accepting the whole of the voluminous evidence produced on the trial as true, we concur fully in the opinion of the court that in no aspect of it was the plaintiff entitled to recover in this action. It did not at all tend to prove that the defendants, or any c, * them, were "the proprietors" of the building known as "Hominy Baptist Church, " or that they had any interest in it, except that some of them were commissioners and members of that church, and others of them were laborers engaged in constructing the church building; one of them being the superintendent of the work. The building in process of construction was not that of ...