Long v. Nute

100 S.W. 511, 123 Mo. App. 204, 1907 Mo. App. LEXIS 296
CourtMissouri Court of Appeals
DecidedFebruary 19, 1907
StatusPublished
Cited by29 cases

This text of 100 S.W. 511 (Long v. Nute) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Missouri Court of Appeals primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Long v. Nute, 100 S.W. 511, 123 Mo. App. 204, 1907 Mo. App. LEXIS 296 (Mo. Ct. App. 1907).

Opinion

BLAND, P. J.

The action was commenced before a justice of the peace and in due course was appealed to the circuit court, where on a trial de novo plaintiff recovered a judgment for eighty-five dollars, from which defendant duly appealed. During the trial, to meet the views of the trial court in regard to the admissibility of evidence, as to the value of the services of a veterinary surgeon, employed by plaintiff to treat the wounds inflicted upon his horse, the complaint, by leave of court, [206]*206was amended so as to read as follows (omitting caption) :

“Plaintiff states that the defendant, by his servant and agent, while in the course of defendant’s employment, on or about the fifteenth day of October, 1904, in the city of St. Luis, so negligently managed his, the defendant’s automobile, that the same ran into the plaintiff’s vehicle and horse, and injuring all of them, causing damages to plaintiff in the sum of $150, for which sum and costs plaintiff asks judgment against the defendant.”

The facts as shown by the abstract are substantially as follows: On October 15, 1904, about five o’clock in the afternoon, plaintiff’s two daughters and a lady friend were driving plaintiff’s horse (hitched to a trap) in a slow trot, south on the west side of Newstead avenue, in the city of St. Louis. When the trap was within fifty feet of the intersection of Newstead ami Washington avenues, one of plaintiff’s daughters (not the driver) noticed an automobile, running at a speed of from twenty to twenty-five-miles an hour, approaching on Washington avenue west, and a coal wagon going north on NeAvstead avenue. The chauffeur driving the automobile, in making a circuit to get around and ahead of the'coal Avagon, drove in between the wagon and the trap but did not make the circuit sharps enough, in consequence of Avhich the automobile struck plaintiff’s horse on the left shoulder with such force as to turn him around and cut a gash seven or eight inches long in his shoulder.

An ordinance of the city, limiting the speed of automobiles to eight miles per hour, was read in evidence. The chauffeur was subject to the orders of defendant and his Avife, and the evidence shOAVs that he had been ordered by Mrs. Nute to call for her at the World’s Fair Grounds on that day at about six o’clock p. m., and that he called for her and she returned to^ her home in the automobile. [207]*207Defendant’s evidence tends to show that the automobile was not on the route from his home, or the garage where the automobile was kept, to the Fair Grounds when it collided with plaintiff’s horse. The chauffeur stopped the automobile and gave the name and address of the owner to the young lady who was driving the trap. On the following morning, plaintiff called at defendant’s home for the purpose of adjusting the matter. As soon as defendant saw plaintiff, and before plaintiff said anything about the collision, defendant addressed him thus: “Mr. Long, I have both hands up and I want to settle as soon as possible.” Nothing came of the effort to settle the matter.

As to the damages, plaintiff’s evidence tends to show the value of the horse before he was injured was one hundred dollars and not more than eighteen dollars after the injury; that he paid twenty dollars to a veterinary surgeon for treating the horse and the charge was a very reasonable one; that the horse was disabled for several months and his services were reasonably worth one dollar and a half'a day. Defendant’s evidence tends to show that the horse was fourteen or fifteen years old, that he was ill-shaped, ragged and not worth more than twenty-five dollars before he was injured and his value was not depreciated by reason of the injury.

The chauffeur, was not in the State at the time of the trial. His deposition was not taken though the evidence shows defendant had' ample time to have taken it before the trial.

1. The court gave the following instructions for plaintiff:

“1. The court instructs the jury that if you find from the evidence that on or about October 15, 1904, a collision took place between an automobile and a horse, and that it was owned by plaintiff, and that such automobile was then owned by the defendant, and was in charge of the defendant’s servant and chauffeur, you are [208]*208authorized to infer from the facts thus found that said servant and chauffeur was at- the time engaged in defendant’s business and acting within the scope of his employment.
“2. The court instructs the jury that if you find for plaintiff you may, in estimating plaintiff’s damages, take into consideration the depreciation if any, in the value of the plaintiff’s horse, as the natural result of the collision, the value of the use of the horse while disabled, and the amount necessarily expended by plaintiff in an endeavor to heal the injuries inflicted on the horse, and award him damages accordingly not to exceed, however, in the aggregate, the sum of one hundred and fifty dollars. The depreciation above referred to would be the lessening in value, if any, of the horse as it was just before the collision and after the cure was effected, provided such lessening, if any, in value was the direct result of the collision.”

Defendant contends that instruction No. 1 is misleading and also erroneous, in that it told the jury that on evidence that the automobile belonged to defendant, and the chauffeur was in his employ, they might infer that at the time of the collision the chauffeur was about defendant’s business and acting within the scope of his authority. As the master is not liable for the tortious act of his servant, if the act was done while the servant was at liberty from his service and was pursuing his own ends exclusively (Garretzen v. Duenckel, 50 Mo. 107; Cousins v. Railroad, 66 Mo. 576), it was essential to plaintiff’s right of recovery that it should be shown the chauffeur was about his master’s business at the time of the collision. May this fact be presumed from evidence showing that the chauffeur who committed the tortious act was at the time operating a vehicle he was hired by defendant specially to run? Defendant cites the case of St. Louis Southwestern Ry. Co. v. Harvy, 144 Fed. 806, as holding the inference cannot be drawn. [209]*209The case decides that the fact that servants guilty of a tortious act make use of the master’s cars, engines or other facilities, which they could, not have obtained in the absence of the relation of master and servant, to commit it, while pursuing their own ends exclusively, does not charge the master with liability for their act, in the absence of his knowledge or consent to such use, and that the mere fact that the handcar, which caused the accident, was in use by servants, was not sufficient to overcome the evidence tending to show the servants got possession of the car surreptitiously and were using it for their own purposes. The case does not support defendant’s contention. As a general proposition, “the law presumes that every one, even though not an official, performs his engagements and duties, social as well as business” (McCallister v. Ross, 155 Mo. 1. c. 94, 55 S. W. 1027, and cases cited). Defendant’s evidence is that the chauffeur had orders not to take the automobile out of the garage except on the order of himself or his wife.

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Bluebook (online)
100 S.W. 511, 123 Mo. App. 204, 1907 Mo. App. LEXIS 296, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/long-v-nute-moctapp-1907.