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212 N.C. 43

192 S.E 849

Liverman v. . Cline

Supreme Court of North Carolina

Decided September 23, 1937

Supreme Court of North Carolina · decided 1937-09-23

Key passage — most relied on by later courts

“at the time of and in respect to the very transaction out of which the injury arose,”

quoted by 1 later decision, including McLamb v. . Beasley

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1937-09-23

How this case has been cited

Cited by 16 later decisions — most recently March 1963

10 state decisions

501937194019501960decided

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

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Stacy, C. J.

¶1 Without debating the question of plaintiff’s alleged contributory negligence, we think the judgment of nonsuit must be upheld *45 on the ground that the record fails to disclose any relation of employer and employee between the defendant and Ralph Gibbs, the driver of the truck at the time of plaintiff’s injury.

¶2 “Where one person is sought to be charged with the negligence or wrongdoing of another, the doctrine of respondeat superior applies only when the relation of master and servant is shown to exist between the wrongdoer and the person so sought to be charged, at the time of and in respect to the very transaction out of which the injury arose. The fact that the former was at the time in the general employment and pay of the latter, does not necessarily make the latter chargeable.” Wyllie v. Palmer, 137 N. Y., 248.

¶3 The foregoing was quoted with approval in Linville v. Nissen, 162 N. C., 95, 77 S. E., 1096, and Van Landingham v. Sewing Machine Co., 207 N. C., 355, 177 S. E., 126, and is universally held for law. Doran v. Thomsen, 76 N. J. L., 754. See, also, Cole v. Funeral Home, 207 N. C., 271, 176 S. E., 553, and Martin v. Bus Line, 197 N. C., 720, 150 S. E., 501; Wilkie v. Stancil, 196 N. C., 794, 147 S. E., 296; Grier v. Grier, 192 N. C., 760, 135 S. E., 852.

¶4 On the record, the judgment of nonsuit is correct.

¶5 Affirmed.

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