84 S.E. 264 | N.C. | 1915
The defendants were indicated, under Revisal, Sec. 3365, for enticing one Frank Battle, a servant, to leave his master, who, it is alleged, was J. R. Bunting, the prosecutor. It will be necessary to consider only one exception of the defendants, who were convicted below, and appealed. They contend that the evidence showed that Frank Battle was not a servant, but either a tenant or a cropper, and if either, they are not indictable, even if it is true that they had induced him to leave his alleged employer. As we are of the opinion that the position is well taken, that Frank Battle was not a servant, and that defendants, therefore, were not indictable for enticing him from the service of J. R. Bunting, they are entitled to a dismissal, even if their other exceptions are not valid. The facts are substantially like those in S. v. Hoover,
The statute itself, Revisal, secs. 1993, 3365, 3366, seems to recognize the clear distinction between a tenant or cropper on the one side and a mere servant, employed to do certain work for hire, and remedies, both civil and criminal, are provided to enforce the rights of the landowner against the defaulting tenant or cropper.
A case very much in point is Barron v. Collins,
We have never understood that, in law, either a tenant or a cropper is the servant of the landowner. So far as an indictment of this kind is concerned, there is no essential difference between a tenant and a cropper.
The mere fact that the tenant pays rent and has an interest in the land, and a cropper only an interest in the crop which is grown upon the land, when the latter furnishes the labor, his own and that of others, and pays half the expense of making the crop, does not so differentiate the two cases as to make the cropper indictable when the tenant would not be. A tenant and cropper are more independent of the landowner than is a servant, and neither owes him the duty of allegiance or of rendering service, as growing out of their relation to him.
The Attorney-General very frankly admitted that the prosecution could not be sustained. We may remark that Haskins v. Royster,
The motion for judgment of nonsuit should have been granted, and there was error in refusing it. It will accordingly be entered in the court below and the prosecution dismissed.
Reversed.
Cited: Minton v. Early,