92 Tenn. 694 | Tenn. | 1893
In this cause the plaintiff below, Robert Griffin, sues the railroad company, who owns and operates a telegraph line, for damages in failing to send or deliver a telegram from the mother of defendant in error, addressed to him at Rives’ Station, Tennessee.
The second count of the declaration avers that Mrs. C. A. Griffin delivered to the railroad company’s agent a telegram, addressed to defendant in error, which gave notice on its face that “ his father was worse or in a dying condition,, and. to come and • bring a lawyer.” This averment was substantially proved. The sender paid the toll on said telegram, the sendee paying nothing. The telegram was delivered to the agent of the railroad company at Obion Station, Tennessee, late in the evening of the twenty-second of April, and received by said agent; but, from some cause, was never forwarded to its destination at Rives’ Station. Upon the morning of the twenty-fourth of April, the defendant in error, without having received the telegram, visited his father, reaching his bed-side on the morning of the twenty-fourth, •about nine o’clock. On the night of the twenty-fifth his father died.
.There was a verdict and judgment of nine hundred dollars for plaintiff below.
The rule laid down in Wadsworth v. Telegraph Company, 2 Pickle, 695, is approved. We hold, under the reasoning of that case and the statute
The first assignment of error of the railroad company is that the verdict is excessive. This we think is well taken. ' As said by Chief Justice Turney in the Wadsworth case: “If juries may assess excessive damages, the Courts can and will correct the wrong.”
We think the damage assessed by the jury in this case ($900) is excessive, and, for this reason, we reverse the case, and remand it for another trial. The appellee, Griffin, will pay the costs of the appeal.