Radke v. Schlundt

65 N.E. 770, 30 Ind. App. 213, 1902 Ind. App. LEXIS 246
CourtIndiana Court of Appeals
DecidedDecember 19, 1902
DocketNo. 4,230
StatusPublished
Cited by8 cases

This text of 65 N.E. 770 (Radke v. Schlundt) 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
Radke v. Schlundt, 65 N.E. 770, 30 Ind. App. 213, 1902 Ind. App. LEXIS 246 (Ind. Ct. App. 1902).

Opinion

Black, P. J.

The appellee x-ecovered against the appellant and his wife for personal injury suffered by the appellee through the negligent driving against and over him by the appellant’s wife of a horse and vehicle owned by the appellant. The court overruled the appellant’s separate demurrer to the amended coxnplaint, and his separate motion for a new trial, and he assigns these rulings as errors. The appellant filed a bill of exceptions containing the official reporter’s longhand manuscript of the evidence and instructions given and instructions asked and rejected. In the transcript of the record in this court this bill of exceptions is a clerk’s transcript of the bill filed, including the instructions and the judge’s certificate, except that the- original longhand manuscript of the official reporter, and not a transcript thereof, is contained in the bill. This is not a proper presentation to this court of the evidence, and, though the instructions given and those refused are in the record on appeal, we can not consider the latter because of the absence of the evidence, and we would be authorized to reverse the judgment because of error in instructions given only in case we should fixid one or more of them improper under any evidence that might have been introduced properly on the trial. See South Chicago City R. Co. v. Zerler (Ind. App.), 65 N. E. 599.

Though we are of the opinion that the complaint does not state facts sufficient, we deem it not improper to discuss the merits as they appear in it, and the instructions given. In the amended complaint it was shown that oxx July 27, 1900, the appellee was an exnploye of the city of Michigan City, and his duties as such were to work in the streets of the city in keeping them clean; and he was acting as such employe in cleaning a street known as Eranklin street; that the defendant Pauline Radie, wife of the appellant, on that day, “as the servant of her codefendant, was driving along said street in the said city, in a certain wagon drawn by one horse, which said wagon and horse were possessed by [215]*215said defendant August Radke [the appellant] ; that the said wagon and the said one horse were possessed by the said defendant August Radke, and were being driven by said defendant Pauline Radke, who is the wife of her said codefendant, and she was so driving as such servant at the time hereinafter specified; that the said defendant Pauline Radke, as such servant, she being the wife of her said co-defendant, so carelessly, negligently, improperly, and immoderately drove and managed the said horse and wagon, that; by reason of said negligence and carelessness and improper and immoderate driving, said wagon and horse struck and trampled” the appellee, and threw him upon the ground, and the horse and wagon otherwise injured the appellee, whereby he was bruised and wounded, etc., — his injuries, loss of occupation, and expenses being set forth in' detail, — to his damage, etc., wherefore, etc.

In its instructions the court stated that if the appellant’s wife started with a horse and buggy owned by the appellant, from the home of the defendants, on the morning in question, for the purpose of selling or delivering butter or eggs or other produce raised on her husband’s farm, and while making such trip the injury was done to the appellee, a presumption would arise from such a state of facts that she was the servant of the appellant; that the wife, in talcing such property of her husband to town for sale, acts as his agent or servant in the prosecution of that business; that if it was her habit to use the money she obtained from the sale of such property in the purchase of groceries, provisions, merchandise, or other articles necessary for the proper conduct of the establishment, such fact would not change the relation of master and servant otherwise existing between the parties; that if appellant’s wife started to town on the day in question with produce of her husband, and sold the same, and then, in the general course of her employment, returned home, she all the time driving the horse and buggy belonging to appellant, then any act of negli[216]*216gence committed by her in the course of such proceeding would be his negligence, if committed in the general course of business; that the temí servant, as used in the complaint, and by the court'in the instructions, is a legal term, and does not mean or designate a domestic or menial servant, but means and designates a person who is doing work or performing a service for or in place of another, and that it is competent for a wife to be a servant of her husband; that the existence of the marital relation between the defendants was immaterial, if she was in the employment of her husband, and acting for him and in his stead; that if the act was done by her in the prosecution of his business, he was not relieved from responsibility by her departure from his instruction in the manner of doing it; that the test of his responsibility for her acts was not whether the act was doné according to instructions from him, but whether it was done in the prosecution of his business, which she at the time was doing.

The injury of the appellee was inflicted by an act in the nature of a trespass, being a forcible injury wrongfully caused by the act itself complained of. At common law trespass would lie for a direct and violent injury, whether inflicted through negligence or intentionally. And from the time of the decision in Williams v. Holland, 10 Bing. 112, case was also a legal remedy for such an injury occasioned by carelessness, but not if wilfully done. Schuer v. Veeder, 7 Blackf. 342.

“Trespass is proper, where the injury is by the direct act of the party, whether done wilfully or negligently. Force directly applied is the criterion.” Strohl v. Levan, 39 Pa. St. 177-185.

It is said in Ohitty, Pleading (14th Am. ed.), 131, that “Though a master be liable under the circumstances to compensate an immediate injury committed by his servant, in the course of his employ, with force; yet the action against [217]*217the master in general must be case, though against the servant it might for the same act be trespass.”

Though a joint action will now lie against a master and his servant for a personal injury caused by the negligent act of the latter, in the absence of the former, in the course of the employment (Wright v. Compton, 53 Ind. 337; Phelps v. Wait, 30 N. Y. 78), yet the nature of the tort of the servant in such case, in view of the common law, is that of a trespass vi el armis,- — as much so as is an assault and battery, — while the liability of the master, which does not seem to be illustrated in any early authority, the importance of the rule belonging altogether to modern law (Webb’s Pollock on Torts (Am. ed.), 89), rests, upon the obligation of one in the conduct of his affairs, under his orders, by another, for lack of due regard to the safety of. third persons. It is often sought to express the obligation of the master by the maxim, respondeat superior, and sometimes by the maxim qui faeit per odium, facit per se.

In the court below, the case was presented as one involving responsibility of the husband, as' master, for the personal injury caused by the negligent act or trespass of the wife as a servant.

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Bluebook (online)
65 N.E. 770, 30 Ind. App. 213, 1902 Ind. App. LEXIS 246, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/radke-v-schlundt-indctapp-1902.