Wilson v. . Clark

14 S.E. 962, 110 N.C. 364

• Court: Supreme Court of North Carolina
• Decided: February 5, 1892
• Status: Published

Opinion

Merrimon, C. J.:

Accepting the whole of the voluminous evidence produced on the trial as true, we concur fully in the opinion of the Court, that in no aspect of it was the plaintiff entitled to recover in this action. It did not at all tend to prove that the defendants, or any of them, were “the proprietors” of the building known as “Hominy Baptist Church,” or that they had any interest in it, except that some of them were commissioners and members of that church, and others of them were laborers engaged in constructing the church building The building in process of construction was not that of the defendants, nor did the evidence show that they were contraclors to build it. The commissioners and the superintendent of the wmrk employed some of the laborers, not for themselves or on their own account, but for the church as an organization. It is doubtful whether the plaintiff was employed by the commissioners — the evidence tended strongly to prove that he asked to be, and was allowed to labor on the building for the purpose of paying part of the sum of money a contributor to the fund to build the church had promised to pay — he was indebted to that contributor — but in the strongest view of the evidence for him, he was no more than a laborer employed to do.wmrk for the church and not for the defendants. The latter were not his employers, nor were they liable to him for the injury he sustained in any aspect of the several causes of action — all substantially the same — alleged in the complaint.

Affirmed.