Hendrix v. Corning

214 S.W. 253, 201 Mo. App. 555, 1919 Mo. App. LEXIS 78
CourtCourt of Appeals of Kansas
DecidedJune 16, 1919
StatusPublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 214 S.W. 253 (Hendrix v. Corning) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Kansas primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Hendrix v. Corning, 214 S.W. 253, 201 Mo. App. 555, 1919 Mo. App. LEXIS 78 (kanctapp 1919).

Opinion

TRIMBLE, J.

— This is an action for damages on account of the death of plaintiff’s two-year-old Per-dieron colt caused by becoming entangled in the wire of a telephone line running along the public road close to the boundary of plaintiff’s farm. This was a private line built and jointly owned by a number of men used by them to obtain connection with the telephone exchange in the neighboring village of Avalon in Livingston county. The line had become old and badly out of repair and rather than fix the old one up, the owners built an entirely new line on the other side of the road, leaving the old line remaining where it was, in a dilapidated and tumble down condition. The poles rotted off and fell or leaned over into plaintiff’s pasture and the colt’s neck was caught therein, choking it to death.

At one time, William Banks, George Corning, Charles Howard, William McKerrowr the Riekenbrode estate, and possibly some others were the joint owners of the telephone line. Homer Banks acquired the interest of William Banks and then Homer, together with the other joint owners, constructed the new line to take the place of the old one.

The case originated in a justice court wherein plaintiff brought suit for $200 against George Corning, Charles Howard, William Banks and William McKer-row. Said defendants took a change of venue to another justice and there filed an answer, containing a general denial and also setting up that “there is a mis-joinder and nonjoinder of necessary and proper parties defendant.” The plaintiff filed a reply in which he stated that if there was a misjoinder of parties defendant it was unknown to plaintiff and that if there were other persons who were necessary and proper parties, he did not know Avho they were and asked that the defendants make them parties.

A trial was had, resulting in a judgment for plaintiff against all defendants in the sum of $150. They appealed to the circuit court. On the first day of the first term of the circuit court after the appeal, the [557]*557plaintiff, presumably acting upon tbe suggestion contained in the answer and the. information learned in the trial before the justice, filed an amended petition which added three other defendants, to-wit: Homer Banks, Webb Rickenbrode, and Charles Zirkle, but otherwise the petition was the same as before.

A trial was had in which the evidence showed that William Banks had no interest in the telephone line at the time the colt was killed, he having sold his interest to Homer Banks as hereinbefore stated; also, that the defendant Charles Zirkle was the switchboard man of the telephone exchange in Avalon, having no ownership in the joint telephone line past plaintiff’s farm, and the only connection he had therewith arose by reason of the fact that all but one of the joint owners of the telephone line, after they had constructed the new line on the other side of the road, had given him the poles and wire of the old line if he would take them down.

The jury returned a verdict in favor of the defendant, Zirkle, but found a verdict for $150 in plaintiff’s favor against all the other defendants, including even William Banks who according to all the evidence had no interest in the line at the time the colt was killed.

The trial court granted a new trial to Rickenbrode and Homer Banks, the two remaining defendants of the three that had been added by amendment in the circuit court, and also granted a new trial to William Banks, one of the original defendants, but allowed the verdict and judgment to stand as against the, other original defendants, Corning, Howard and McKerrow. Thereupon plaintiff dismissed as to William Banks who had been shown to have no interest in the line, and also dismissed as to the defendants Rickenbrode and Homer Banks who had been brought in by amendment after the case reached the circuit court. The three original defendants, Corning, Howard and McKerrow, have appealed.

[558]*558The first contention we shall dispose of is that the demurrer of these appealing defendants should have been sustained because the evidence conclusively shows that Zirkle, and not the other defendants, owned the old line at the time the colt was killed. The basis of this contention is' the claim that when the new line on the other side of the road was completed the owners had given the old line to Zirkle and, therefore, they were not liable to plaintiff. Without passing upon the question of whether, if the owners of the line had orally given it to Zirkle as an out-and-out gift which had been accepted in the same manner, this would absolve defendants from liability, we are of the opinion that there is ample evidence to , support the view that the owners, except Rickenbrode, gave the old line to Zirkle in this way in order to get rid of the task of removing it themselves, and that the gift was not a completed gift until it was entirely taken down. The evidence shows that Rickenbrode, who had the Rickenbrode estate in charge, had reserved such interest, whatever that was, whether a certain portion or an undivided interest is not shown, and although Zirkle had commenced at one end to take down the old line, yet, not knowing where the interest of the Rickenbrode estate was he had quit, leaving the old line at it was. There was ample evidence to support the jury’s finding that the defendants, and not Zirkle, were the owners of the line, and that his possession and ownership would not become complete until he had taken down the entire line. To constitute a completed gift the transfer must be voluntary, gratuitous and absolute, and the donor must part with all present and future dominion over it. [12 R. C. L. 923.] There is no completed gift- where there is a condition • attached to its delivery and that condition has been unperformed. [Olney v. Howe, 89 Ill. 556; Beatty v. Western College of Toledo, 177 Ill. 280.] We do not see how the - defendant owners, who were responsible for the presence of the dilapidated line, could absolve themselves from liability for its remaining [559]*559there, when, in order to escape the duty of taking it away, they, in effect, tell another he may have the material if he will perform that duty.

It is nest claimed that the amendment made making additional parties defendant in the circuit court created a new cause of action different from the one tried in the justice court, and as only the same cause of action and no other (Secs. 7585 and 7587, R. S. 1909) can he tried on appeal' from the justice to the circuit court, the latter obtained no jurisdiction.

We need not go into any investigation of what effect defendants ’ contention in the answer in the justice court that there were other necessary parties, had upon what was done in the way of the amendment bringing in new parties. The joint owners of the line were joint tortfeasors, and plaintiff had the right to sue all or any one or more of them. [See. 1734, R. S. 1909.] Each tortfeasor was liable to the full extent of the damage. [Noble v. Kansas City, 95 Mo. App. 167; Hutchinson v. Richmond Safety Gate Co., 247 Mo. 71, 110-111.] Plaintiff’s cause' of action was complete against the three original defendants who were owners of the line, and the bringing in of the new defendants by amendment in the circuit court was unnecessary .to a complete determination thereof. So that there was no ground in law for bringing in the new defendants. [Bushnell v. Louisville, etc., R. Co., 126. Mo. App. 63, 68-69; Altheimer v. Teuscher, 47 Mo. App.

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Bluebook (online)
214 S.W. 253, 201 Mo. App. 555, 1919 Mo. App. LEXIS 78, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/hendrix-v-corning-kanctapp-1919.