Premier Motor Manufacturing Co. v. Tilford

111 N.E. 645, 61 Ind. App. 164, 1916 Ind. App. LEXIS 41
CourtIndiana Court of Appeals
DecidedFebruary 24, 1916
DocketNo. 8,938
StatusPublished
Cited by29 cases

This text of 111 N.E. 645 (Premier Motor Manufacturing Co. v. Tilford) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Indiana Court of Appeals primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Premier Motor Manufacturing Co. v. Tilford, 111 N.E. 645, 61 Ind. App. 164, 1916 Ind. App. LEXIS 41 (Ind. Ct. App. 1916).

Opinion

Hottel, J.

This is an appeal from a judgment of $1,000, recovered by appellee in a suit brought by ber against appellant for personal injuries alleged to bave resulted from a collision between one of appellant’s automobiles and a buggy in wbieb appellee was riding. Tbe issues of fact were tendered by a complaint in one paragraph and a general denial. Tbe averments of tbe complaint necessary to an understanding of tbe questions presented by the appeal are in substance as follows: Tbe appellant is a corporation engaged in tbe manufacture of automobiles in tbe city of Indianapolis. On August 12, 1911, tbe time of tbe collision complained of, appellant bad in its employ tbe driver of tbe automo[166]*166bile who was at the time the agent of appellant acting “under the scope of his employment”. The automobile was being driven by such agent south over Central Avenue, near its crossing with 56th Street in the city of Indianapolis, “at the negligent- and careless rate of speed of fifty miles an hour more or less” and said agent “negligently and carelessly caused said automobile to collide with and strike this plaintiff’s vehicle in which she was riding.” The collision occurred after sundown, about 8 o’clock in the evening, and it was dark.. Appellee “was proceeding in a northerly direction upon said public thoroughfare and upon the right-hand side thereof near said intersection of said 56th Street; said defendant was propelling Us said automobile which struck this plaintiff upon and over said public thoroughfare in a southerly direction without having lighted lights upon said automobile and without having a warning signal attached to said automobile and negligently and carelessly collided with this plaintiff and struck this plaintiff with said automobile at said time; * * * that said defendant at such times was operating said automobile at said negligent rate of speed and without said lighted lights and negligently and carelessly ran said automobile upon, against and over said plaintiff from said northerly direction without giving any warning to this plaintiff of the approach of said automobile at a time when plaintiff was unconscious and unaware of the approach towards her of said automobile, and at said time plaintiff was in full view of said defendant; that defendant at such time negligently and carelessly failed to warn plaintiff of his approach towards her and negligently and carelessly failed and omitted to get said automobile under control”, etc. Prayer for $25,000 damages.

Appellant filed a motion to make the complaint [167]*167more specific by stating what the driver of the automobile was doing for it when the collision occurred and the facts upon which appellee based the conclusion stated in the complaint that at said time such driver was the agent of appellant acting within the scope of his authority. This motion was overruled. The ruling on this motion and appellant’s motion for new trial are relied on for reversal.

.1. Appellant insists, in effect, that since the passage of the act approved March 15, 1913 (Acts 1913 p. 850, §343a Burns 1914), the court is required to consider and give the pleader the benefit of all the averments of his complaint though made by way of conclusion; that, as the only remedy against such practice, such act contains a proviso authorizing a motion to require the pleader to state the facts on which his conclusion is based; that by reason of such act and the proviso therein it is now the imperative duty of the trial court to sustain such a motion when the averments of the pleading to which it is addressed are such as to make it proper and appropriate, and that the overruling of such a motion under such circumstances constitutes an error, which, when properly presented on appeal, will necessitate a reversal of the judgment of the trial court. The act, supra, does not require every conclusion stated in a pleading to be considered and treated as an allegation of the facts necessary to sustain such conclusion, but expressly limits its application to such conclusions as are necessary to the sufficiency of the pleading. As to conclusions unnecessary to the sufficiency of a pleading the law remains as it has always been, viz., any statement in a pleading whether made by way of conclusion, or by direct averment of fact, if unnecessary to the sufficiency thereof, may be disregarded and hence any ruling on a motion to make such an [168]*168averment more specific would be necessarily harmless.

2. In a sense the averment complained of as being a conclusion was not necessary to the sufficiency of the pleading; that is to say, the italicized averments, supra, which charge the appellant with negligently operating the automobile, etc., were sufficient to make it good as against demurrer, but when the complaint is read in its entirety we know that appellant is a corporation, and that it could not operate the automobile except by and through the driver thereof as its agent, and we know that in order to make appellant liable for such operation such driver must have acted within the scope of his employment. The averment that appellant operated the automobile when read in the light of the other averments, as it should be, was itself a conclusion, which involved both the conclusion that the driver of the automobile was appellant’s agent, and the further conclusion that as such agent he was acting within the scope of his employment when operating said automobile. The pleader ought not to be relieved from stating the facts upon which a conclusion in his pleading is based, when such conclusion is necessary to the sufficiency of the averments in connection * with which it is made,simply because such pleading happens tó be rendered sufficient against demurrer by reason of another conclusion which is broader than, and includes, the former conclusion. In the sense which we have indicated and as affecting the averments of the complaint in aid of which it was pleaded, said conclusion was necessary to the sufficiency of the complaint and for this reason the court below should have sustained the motion to make more specific. In view, however, of our disposition, of other questions presented by the appeal we need not determine [169]*169whether the error resulting from the ruling on said motion should be treated as harmless.

3. In support of its second assigned error the principal question raised by appellant is whether it was responsible for the acts of the driver of the automobile. Appellant insists in effect that the evidence, upon such question, is not sufficient to sustain the decision of the trial court, and that such ground of its motion for new trial, and. also that ground of its motion which challenges the action of' the trial court in refusing to give a peremptory instruction in its favor, presents reversible error. The law applicable to this question may be stated as follows: “For all acts done by a servant in obedience to the express orders or directions of the master, or in the execution of the master’s business within the scope of his employment, and for acts in any sense warranted by the express or implied authority conferred upon him, considering the nature of the services required, the instruction given, and the circumstances under which the act is done, the master is responsible.” Colwell v. Aetna Bottle, etc., Co. (1912), 33 R. I. 531, 82 Atl. 388, 391, and cases cited; Richie v. Waller (1893), 63 Conn. 155, 28 Atl. 29, 38 Am. St. 361, 27 L. R. A. 161.

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Bluebook (online)
111 N.E. 645, 61 Ind. App. 164, 1916 Ind. App. LEXIS 41, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/premier-motor-manufacturing-co-v-tilford-indctapp-1916.