Postal Telegraph-Cable Co. v. Eubanks

Citations

• 121 Miss. 530
• 83 So. 678

Syllabus

<p>1. Commerce. Interstate telegrams governed as .to punitive damages by federal law.</p> <p>A telegram offered for transmission from a point in this state to a point in another state was an interstate message and governed as to the recovery of punitive damages by federal law.</p> <p>2. Telegraphs and Telephones. Punitive damages not recoverable for agent’s wilful refusal to accept message unless wrong was authorized of ratified.</p> <p>Under the federal rule no recovery of punitive damages can be had on account of the wilful conduct of the servant, unless the commission of the wrong was authorized by the master, participated in by him, or ratified by him.</p> <p>2. Commerce. Act of telegraph company’s agent in refusing to take interstate message. An interstate transaction governed by federal law.</p> <p>Where plaintiff went to defendant telegraph company’s agent and stated that he wanted the agent to deliver a message to a point in another state, which the_ agent refused to do, the act of the agent was not wholly disconnected with interstate commerce, but was so intimately related to the proposed message, interstate in character, that his refusal to receive it was the act of an interstate agent in violation of a federal duty with reference to an interstate matter, and therefore controlled by the federal law as to the telegraph company’s liability for punitive damages.</p>