101 So. 824 | Ala. | 1924
Unless the decision in City Delivery Co. v. Henry,
Nor can the result in question be justified on the ground that the agent of defendant who arrested and imprisoned plaintiff was at the time a vice principal or alter ego of the defendant corporation. As stated in the opinion of the Court of Appeals, the evidence was that plaintiff had been arrested by an agent of defendant without a warrant, and that at the time said agent was "engaged in regular duties for the company," meaning the defendant. As the Court of Appeals states the matter, the agent was acting in the line of his duty and was about his master's business; and thereupon the conclusion seems to have been attained that the arresting agent should be considered as the alter ego or vice principal of the defendant. But the facts stated fall far short of constituting the arresting agent the vice principal of the defendant as those terms may be properly used with reference to the subject-matter of discussion; there was, we may infer from the court's statement of facts, no general managerial authority conferred upon the agent; nor was he at the head of any department of defendant's business with managerial authority. He was nothing more than an employee; he was therefore not a *132 vice principal (4 Words and Phrases, Second Series, 1168 et seq.), and the conclusion that there was no error in refusing defendant's requested general charge as against the third count of the complaint cannot be justified on that ground.
However, the evidence went to show, as the Court of Appeals states, that after defendant's agent had arrested plaintiff he took plaintiff before a magistrate, swore out a warrant against him, and lodged him in jail. Thereafter the agent consulted with the "regular attorney" of defendant, who, we think, may be considered as defendant's vice principal in the legal department of its business — that is, as its attorney regularly employed to care for any legal business in which defendant might be interested — and the attorney thereafter appeared in court and prosecuted plaintiff before the court on the charge of trespass to property, the charge on which the agent had arrested him and the charge preferred against him in the warrant sworn out before the magistrate. From these facts the jury were authorized to infer a ratification of the act of the agent, and upon such ratification may have founded the conclusion of direct corporate action as alleged in the third count of the complaint. On this consideration we hold that the conclusion reached by the Court of Appeals as to the general charge on the third count was correct.
In other respects this court finds that the judgment and opinion of the Court of Appeals is free from error.
Application denied.
ANDERSON, C. J., and GARDNER and MILLER, JJ., concur.