Opinion of the Court.

work. But the company, disputing his right to possession, ejected him by force and violence. He brought his action of forcible entry and detainer. This court said that the party "so using force and acquiring possession may have the superior title, or may have the better right to the present possession, but the policy of the law in this class of cases is to prevent disturbances of the public peace, to forbid any person righting himself in a case of that kind by his own hand and by violence, and to require that the party who has in this manner obtained possession shall restore it to the party from whom it has been so obtained; and then, when the parties are in statu quo, or in the same position as they were before the use of violence, the party out of possession must resort to legal means to obtain his possession, as he should have done in the first instance." Iron Mountain & Helena Railroad v. Johnson, 119 U. S. 608, 611. While this language was used in a case arising under a local statute, relating to actions of forcible entry and detainer, it is not without force in cases like this, where the peaceable possession of property is disturbed by such means as constitute a breach of the peace. If, in the employment of force and violence, personal injury arises therefrom to the person or persons thus in peaceable possession, the party using such unnecessary force and violence is liable in damages, without reference to the question of legal title or right of possession.

Reference was made in argument to those portions of the charge that refer to the liability of corporations for torts committed by their employes and servants.

In Philadelphia, Wilmington & Baltimore Railroad v. Quigley, 21 How. 202, this court held that a railroad corporation was responsible for the publication by them of a libel, in which the capacity and skill of a mechanic and builder of depots, bridges, station-houses, and other structures for railroad companies, were falsely and maliciously disparaged and undervalued. The publication, in that case, consisted in the preservation, in the permanent form of a book for distribution among the persons belonging to the corporation, of a report made by a committee of the company's board of directors, in relation

Opinion of the Court.

to the administration and dealings of the plaintiff as a superintendent of the road. The court, upon a full review of the authorities, held it to be the result of the cases, "that for acts done by the agents of a corporation either in contractu or in delicto, in the course of its business, and of their employment, the corporation is responsible as an individual is responsible under similar circumstances." In State v. Morris & Essex Railroad, 23 N. J. Law (2 Zabriskie) 369, it was well said that, "if a corporation has itself no hands with which to strike, it may employ the hands of others; and it is now perfectly well settled, contrary to the ancient authorities, that a corporation is liable civiliter for all torts committed by its servants or agents by authority of the corporation, express or implied. The result of the modern cases is, that a corporation is liable civiliter for torts committed by its servants or agents precisely as a natural person; and that it is liable as a natural person for the acts of its agents done by its authority, express or implied, though there be neither a written appointment under seal nor a vote of the corporation constituting the agency or authorizing the act." See also Salt Lake City v. Hollister, 118 U. S. 256, 260; New Jersey Steamboat Company v. Brockett, 121 U. S. 637; National Bank v. Graham, 100 U. S. 699, 702. The instructions given to the jury were in harmony with these salutary principles. Whatever may be said of some expressions in the charge, when detached from their context, the whole charge was as favorable to the defendant as it was entitled to demand under the evidence.

One of the consequences of the wound received by the plaintiff at the hands of the defendant's servants was the loss of the power to have offspring-a loss resulting directly and proximately from the nature of the wound. Evidence of this fact was, therefore, admissible, although the declaration does not, in terms, specify such loss as one of the results of the wound. The court very properly instructed the jury that such impotency, if caused by the defendant's wrong, might be considered in estimating any compensatory damages to which the plaintiff might be found, under all the evidence, to be entitled. Wade v. Leroy, 20 How. 34, 44.

Opinion of the Court.

The court also instructed the jury that they were not limited to compensatory damages, but could give punitive or exemplary damages, if it was found that the defendant acted with bad intent, and in pursuance of an unlawful purpose to forcibly take possession of the railway occupied by the other company, and in so doing shot the plaintiff, causing him incurable and permanent injury; always bearing in mind that the total dam ages could not exceed the sum claimed in the declaration. This instruction, the company contends, was erroneous. Its counsel argue that, while a master may be accountable to an injured party to the extent of compensatory damages for the wrongful acts of his servant-provided the servant is acting within the general scope of his employment in committing the injury even though the master may not have authorized or may have even forbidden the doing of the particular act complained of, yet he cannot be mulcted in exemplary damages unless he directed the servant to commit the special wrong in question in such manner as to personally identify himself with the servant in the perpetration of the injurious act.

The right of the jury in some cases to award exemplary or punitive damages is no longer an open question in this court. In Day v. Woodworth, 13 How. 363, 371, which was an action of trespass for tearing down and destroying a mill-dam, this court said that in all actions of trespass, and all actions on the case for torts, "a jury may inflict what are called exemplary, punitive, or vindictive damages, upon a defendant, having in view the enormity of his offence rather than the measure of compensation to the plaintiff ;" and that such exemplary damages were allowable "in actions of trespass where the injury has been wanton or malicious, or gross and outrageous." The general rule was recognized and enforced in Philadelphia, Wilmington & Baltimore Railroad Co. v. Quigley, which, as we have seen, was an action to recover damages against a corporation for a libel; in the latter case, the court observing that the malice spoken of in the rule announced in Day v. Woodworth was not merely the doing of an unlawful or injurious act, but the act complained of must have been conceived "in the spirit of mischief or of criminal indifference to civil obli

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gations." See also Milwaukee & St. Paul Railway v. Arms, 91 U. S. 489, 492; Missouri Pacific Railway v. Humes, 115 U. S. 512, 521; and Barry v. Edmunds, 116 U. S. 550, 562,

563.

The court, in the present case, said nothing to the jury that was inconsistent with the principle as settled in these cases. The jury were expressly restricted to compensatory damages, unless they found from the evidence that the defendant acted with bad intent and in pursuance of an unlawful purpose to employ force to dispossess the other company. The doctrine of punitive damages should certainly apply in a case like this, where a corporation, by its controlling officers, wantonly disturbed the peace of the community, and by the use of violent means endangered the lives of citizens in order to maintain. rights, for the vindication of which, if they existed, an appeal should have been made to the judicial tribunals of the country. That the defendant, within the meaning of the rule holding corporations responsible for the misconduct of their servants in the course of its business and of their employment, directed that to be done which was done, it is not to be doubted from the evidence, the whole of which is given in the bill of exceptions. Its governing officers were in the actual command and directing the movements of what one of the witnesses described as the "Denver and Rio Grande forces," which were avowedly organized for the purpose of driving the other company and its employes, by force, from the possession of the road in question.

Other questions were discussed by counsel, but they do not, in our judgment, deserve consideration. Substantial justice has been done without violating any principle of law in the admission of evidence, or in the granting or refusing of instructions.

The judgment is affirmed.

Statement of the Case.

RICE v. UNITED STATES.

APPEAL FROM THE COURT OF CLAIMS.

Submitted January 3, 1887.- Decided March 7, 1887.

The appellant, on the 17th February, 1886, filed his petition in the Court of Claims, setting forth his appointment as assignee in bankruptcy of one Robert Erwin and of Hardee, his partner in business in Savannah; that Erwin in 1864 and in 1865 was the owner of a quantity of cotton, in the state of Georgia, which was seized and captured and the proceeds of which passed into the Treasury of the United States; that Congress, on the 5th February, 1877, passed an act to permit the Court of Claims to take jurisdiction of the claims of Erwin for this cotton, his right of action therefor being then barred; that at the time of the passage of that act Erwin's said claims had passed into the hands of his assignee, and were a part of his assets in bankruptcy; and that this suit was brought in pursuance of the special act; and he prayed judgment for the amount in the Treasury. The United States demurred to this, and also moved to dismiss the petition. The Court of Claims dismissed the petition. On appeal that judgment is affirmed by a divided court.

THIS was an appeal from a judgment of the Court of Claims dismissing the petition of the appellant.

By the act of February 5, 1877, entitled "An act for the relief of Robert Erwin," 19 Stat. 509, Congress enacted: "That the Court of Claims may take jurisdiction under the provisions of the act of March 12, 1863, entitled An act to provide for the collection of abandoned property and for the prevention of frauds in insurrectionary districts within the United States,' of the claims of Robert Erwin, of Savannah, Ga., for property alleged to have been taken from him, which claims were by accident or mistake of his agent or attorney, and without fault or neglect on his part, as is claimed, not filed within the time limited by said act."

Under this act Erwin, who had become a bankrupt after his property was seized by the military forces of the United States, brought suit in his own name in the Court of Claims. His petition was dismissed there on the ground that the title to the property was in the assignee, and this judgment was affirmed on appeal. 97 U. S. 392.