43 S.E. 817 | S.C. | 1903
March 14, 1903. The opinion of the Court was delivered by This action was brought in the county of Greenville against Blue Ridge Railway Company for damages for personal injuries which the plaintiff, James L. Boyd, alleged he had suffered from the grossly negligent, reckless and wilful conduct of the defendant's employees, while a passenger on one of its trains. The plaintiff recovered judgment and defendant appeals.
In the first exception, appellant takes the position that the Court of Common Pleas for Greenville County was without jurisdiction of the action, and that it could only be maintained in the Court of Common Pleas for Anderson or Oconee Counties. We assume the correctness of the statement of appellant's counsel that the following facts bearing on this exception are admitted:
"1. The Blue Ridge Railroad runs from Anderson to Walhalla, and lies wholly within the counties of Anderson and Oconee.
"2. In the counties of Anderson and Oconee the company maintains public offices for the transaction of its business, and has there agents upon whom process may be served.
"3. The `principal place of business of the corporation' is designated in the charter (XXIII. Stat., 1297), at Anderson, S.C.
"4. H.C. Beattie is president of the company, lives at Greenville, and has his office as president there.
"5. A.H. Wells is assistant auditor of the company, lives at Greenville, and has his office as assistant auditor there; the auditor lives at Washington; the secretary at Raleigh, N.C.
"6. The accident occurred in Anderson County."
Appellant contends, first, on authority of Tobin v. Railroad *328 Co.,
In considering whether the defendant had its principal place of business in Greenville County, the Court has before it only the above stated admissions. The charter of the corporation states, "the principal place of business of the corporation will be Anderson, in the State of South Carolina." There is no evidence whatever that its main office has been established at Anderson, and we have no right to assume this as a fact. The president and assistant auditor seem to be the only important officers of the company doing business for it in this State, and they both reside in Greenville, and have *329 their offices there. In the absence of any proof as to any other locality being the principal place of business, we are obliged to regard it the place where these offices are. Certainly the Court cannot as a matter of law assume the office of the president is not the principal office of the corporation. The presumption is that the president is the general agent of the company, having the principal direction of its affairs. Thompson on Corporations, sec. 4618. It is not necessary, therefore, to decide the question whether a railroad company may not be regarded a resident of any county where it maintains a permanent office for the transaction of the business of the corporation, even though it is not the principal place of business and none of its line be operated in the county; for with the facts before the Court we are obliged to consider the main office of Blue Ridge Railway Company at Greenville.
In the second and third exceptions the appellant takes the position that the Circuit Judge charged the jury they might give exemplary damages for gross negligence. If this is so, the instruction was erroneous. Watts v. RailwayCo.,
The questions made in subdivisions (a) and (b) of the fourth exception have already been discussed. In subdivision (c) of this exception the appellant insists the Circuit Judge invaded the province of the jury, in using the illustration of a motorman of a street car putting on an extra head of electricity and rushing his car through a crowded street, in utter disregard of the safety of the people on the streets. To illustrate by stating a hypothetical case, as was done here, sometimes gives the jury a clearer apprehension of the legal terms the trial Judge is obliged to use in his charge. While such illustrations should, no doubt, be used with great caution, they are admissible when they contain no statement of the facts of the case under consideration and no intimation of the opinion of the Judge on the facts. Mew v. Ry. Co.,
The judgment of this Court is, that the judgment of the Circuit Court be affirmed.
Submitted on printed briefs. R. *332