91 Kan. 142 | Kan. | 1913
The opinion of the court was delivered by
This was an action by Joseph B. Stalker against D. D. Drake to recover damages for alleged willful, wanton and malicious oppression. The record discloses that the appellant was a money lender and had a chain of offices over the country with headquarters at Kansas City, the Kansas City office being managed by an agent named Van Zandt. Drake’s residence appears to have been at Delaware Water Gap, Pa. The appellee was a railway employee, and had been employed by a number of railway companies in various capacities, as freight brakeman, conductor, switchman and yardmaster. In May, 1903, while employed by the St. Louis & San Francisco Railroad Company as conductor the appellee applied to the office of Drake, managed by Van Zandt, for a loan of $25. He signed two papers without reading either of them. One was a note and the other an assignment of his wages. The loan was to run for a period of one month and Stalker was to pay $2.50 for the use of the money. He renewed the note the following month on the payment of an additional $2.50. He endeavored to again renew it in July, a day or two after it became due, and was informed that the matter had been placed in the hands of
It is contended that no recovery can be had because of the lack of legal evidence of conspiracy. The appellant assumes that the action is one to recover damages for a conspiracy between appellant and his agents, and that as there is a lack of proof to show combination, concert of action, a unity of design and a common purpose of all to do the unlawful acts, no recovery can be had. There is nothing substantial in this contention. The action is not grounded on the conspiracy of Drake and his agents as tort-feasors, but is the ordinary one, asserting a liability for the wrongs of appellant accomplished by himself directly and through his agents.. The word “conspiracy” is used in the petition where it is alleged that Drake, knowing that appellee was dependent, upon his salary, and that the filing of an assignment with the railroad company and the beginning of suits against appellee would stop the payment of his wages, prevent promotion in the railroad service, and jeopardize his position, and knowing also that the claim against appellee was illegal and extortionate and could not be collected by legal means, that he and his agent brought suits away from Kansas City and in Chicago, remote from appellee’s residence, filing assignments, obtaining continuances and resorting to other dilatory tactics, and when a final adjudication was rendered against appellant that he still continued to file assignments and to make threats of other litigation, and that
The argument that ,a cause of action is not stated in the petition can hardly be seriously made. It certainly states good ground for recovery for both actual and punitive damages, and it would be a reproach upon the law if it did not afford a remedy for the willful and malicious acts of oppression and coercion recited in the petition.
It is also contended that the award of $1000 as actual damages is not supported by the evidence nor yet by the special findings. The injuries about which testimony was given would have afforded a basis for a much larger award, but there are reasons for the contention that the findings do not warrant the amount awarded as actual damages. In answer to special questions, the jury found that appellee was entitled to recover $75 for loss of time, $20 for attorneys’ fees in the first suit brought before a justice of the peace in Chicago, $18 for the expense of depositions, $25 for attorneys’ fees in the second suit at Chicago, $100 for attorneys’ fees in a suit at Kansas City, and $10 for procuring surety bonds in the litigation with appellant. Then the question is asked, “If you allow any other sum as actual damages, state for what said actual damages are allowed,” and it is answered, “Railroad, hotel and incidental expenses, $200.00.” The items of damage, ex-
•' It is urged that there is no ground for the allowance of exemplary damages, and that, in any event, the award is so large as to indicate passion and prejudice on the part of the jury. The punitive damages were fixed at the sum of $5000. It is argued by appellant that this award was necessarily the result of unreasoning hostility of the jurors against usury and their re