Yazoo & M.V.R. Co. v. Stansberry

• Decision Date: 24 October 1910
• Docket Number: 14,661
• Parties: YAZOO & MISSISSIPPI VALLEY RAILROAD COMPANY v. ANDREW H. STANSBERRY
• Court: Mississippi Supreme Court

53 So. 389

97 Miss. 831

YAZOO & MISSISSIPPI VALLEY RAILROAD COMPANY v. ANDREW H. STANSBERRY

No. 14,661

Supreme Court of Mississippi

October 24, 1910

FROM the circuit court of Wilkinson county, HON. MOYSE H WILKINSON, Judge.

Stansberry appellee, was plaintiff in the court below; the railroad company, appellant, was defendant there. From a judgment in plaintiff's favor defendant appealed to the supreme court. The facts of the case are stated in the opinion of the court.

Reversed and remanded.

Mayes &amp Longstreet, for appellant.

The brief of counsel for appellant had been withdrawn or was lost from the record when it came to the reporter; hence, a synopsis of it is not given.]

Bramlette & Tucker, for appellee.

Appellant, defendant in the court below, employed Meyer Stansbury, the minor son of appellee, without his father's consent, and while in his father's service, and put him to hazardous work on its train and while employed and working under the orders of appellant's servants, the son was seriously injured, losing one foot, which rendered him unfit for further service to his father, and a charge upon him.

A father has the right to the services of his minor child, and under the facts of this case, appellant is liable for all damages sustained by appellee on account of appellant's unlawful employment of his minor son in the hazardous work on its train, regardless of the question of contributory negligence, which is no defense. Louisville, etc., R. Co. v. Willis, 83 Ky. 58, 4 Am. St. Rep. 124. This case is cited with approval in 14 Am. & Eng. Ency. of Law (1st ed.) 755.

Code 1906, § 1080, makes it a crime for any one to employ a minor without the father's consent, thus emphasizing the policy of protecting the father's right to the service of his minor son.

OPINION

SMITH, J.

Appellee's minor son, aged seventeen years, without appellee's knowledge or consent, desiring to go from the town of Ashwood to the town of Slaughter and return, applied to the conductor of one of appellant's mixed trains for permission to travel thereon, in consideration of his assisting the train crew in loading and unloading freight. To this the conductor agreed. While rendering such service the boy was injured, without negligence on the part of appellant or its employes. No evidence was introduced by either side tending to show what authority the conductor had to employ assistance in operating his train, other than the employes furnished him by the railroad company. At the close of the evidence the court peremptorily instructed the jury to find for the plaintiff, leaving to their determination only the amount of damages. From a verdict and judgment in favor of appellee, this appeal is taken.

The contention of appellee is that the relation of master and servant existed between him and his son, and that appellant, by employing his son, his servant, without his (appellee's) consent, in an obviously dangerous business became responsible to the appellee for any injury which his son might sustain while so engaged, and which can be rationally attributed to the undertaking, even though the injury...