By a great variety of statutes, a special jurisdiction is given to magistrates over servants in husbandry, and also in many classes of manufactures and other employments. None of these rules of law ipply to menial servants. The object of them, as relates to servants in husbandry, is to compel persons not having any ostensible means of subsistence, to enter into service, to regulate the time and mode of their service, to punish negligence and refusal to serve, to determine disputes between masters and servants, to enable servants to recover their wages, and to authorise magistrates under certain circumstances to put an end to the service.
Those statutes which relate to servants in manufactures and other employments prohibit the payment of wages in goods, and provide for their payment in money, and for the regulation of disputes concerning them. They also contain various enactments applicable to the cases of workmen, &c., absconding, neglecting or mismanaging their work, injuring or embezzling the materials, tools, &c., entrusted to them, and fraudulently. receiving those entrusted to others. With respect also to this class of servants, magistrates have authority to put an end to the contracts of hiring and service.
By reason of the relationship which exists between a master and a ser vant, and the protection which is thereby due from the former to the latter, a master is not held to be guilty of the offence of maintenance PlairrEsrexcE], though he maintain and support his servant in an action brought by him against a third party. When a servant is assaulted, his master is justified in assisting his servant, and repelling the assault by force, although ho himself be not attacked; and under similar circum stances a servant may justify an assault committed in defence of his master. A master is answerable, both civilly and criminally, for those acts of his servant which are done within the scope of his employment. Thus a master is indictable if a servant commit a nuisance by throwing dirt on the highway ; and a bookseller or newsvender is liable, criminally as well as civilly, for libels which are sold by his servant in his shop. This liability of the master does not release the servant from his own liability to punishment for the same offence. The servant is also liable when he commits a trespass by the command of his master. A master, although liable civilly for any injuries arising from the negligence or unskilfulness of his servant, is not responsible for the consequences of a wilful act of his servant done without the direction or assent of the master : in such case the servant alone is liable. Where a servant makes a contract within the scope of his employment, what he does will be binding on his master, just as if he had expressly authorised the servant. But in all cases where there is no express evidence of the delegation of the master's authority, there must be facts from which such delegation can be inferred. Where a servant obtains goods for his master, which the master uses, and he afterwards gives money to the servant to pay for them, the master will be liable to pay for them, even though the money should have been embezzled by the servant. If a coachman go in his master's livery to hire horses, which his master afterwards uses, the master will be liable to pay for them, though the coachman has received a large salary for the express pm-pose of pro viding horses; unless, indeed, that fact were known to the party who let out the horses. If a master is in the habit of paying ready money for articles furnished to his family, and gives money to a servant, ou a particular occasion, for the purpose of paying for the articles which he is sent to procure, the master will not be liable to the tradesman if the servant should embezzle the money. Where articles furnished to a certain amount have always been paid for in ready money, and a tradesman allows other articles of the same character to be delivered without payment, the master will not be liable, unless the tradesman ascertains that the articles are for the master's own use. Where a
tradesman, who had not before been employed by a master, was directed by a servant to do some work, and afterwards did it without any communication with the master, it was held that the master was not liable, though the thing upon which the work was done was the property of the master.
By the contract of hiring and service, the master obtains a right to the service of the servant. Any one, therefore, who interferes with that right does him an injury for which he is responsible in an action for damages. A master may be deprived of the services of a servant, either by some hurt done to the servant, or by his being enticed out of the service. An action, therefore, may be brought by a master where a servant has received some personal Injury disqualifying him from the discharge of his duties as a servant, as where he has been disabled by the overturn of a coach, the bite of a third person's dog, &c. The action by a parent against the reducer of his daughter is of this class, and purports to be brought to recover the damages incurred by the parent for the lose of his daughter's services; and although in practice the damages are never really measured by the injury occurring from the mere loss of service, still, from the form of the action,—the only one which can be brought in such a case,—it is necessary to give evi dence of services performed. Any kind of assistance in domestic offices is sufficient. [PAMIR? AND Cnitta.) In order to succeed in an action for enticing a servant out of his service, the master must prove that the party enticing away the servant knew of the previous engagement at the time when he enticed him away, or that lie has refused to restore the servant upon subse quent application. This action is maintainable where the servant is hired to do work by the piece, as well as where the servant is hired for a definite time. But no action lies for inducing a servant to quit his service at the period when the definite time for which he was hired expires, although the servant had no previous intention of quitting the service at such period. Neither will an action lie against a party for enticing away a servant if the servant has paid to the master the penalty stipulated for by the agreement of hiring and service in case of his quitting his master's service. Where a servant has been enticed away from the service, an action lies against him for his breach of contract, as well as against the party who has enticed him away.
It is not inconsistent with the duty of the servant of a tradesman to solicit his master's customers to give him business after he shall have left the service of his master. Where a workman discovers a new invention during the time of his service, the invention is the property of the servant, unless perhaps he were specially hired for the purpose of making new inventions.
Penalties are imposed by the statute law upon parties who personate masters and give false characters with servants ; and also upon those who, though they really have been masters, wilfully make false state ments in writing, as to the time and particulars ad the service or the character of the servant, and also upon those who personate servants or falsely state that they have been in particular services, or deny that they have been in such employments as they really have filled. A person who wilfully gives a false character with a servant is also liable to an action at the suit of the party who has been induced by the false character to employ the servant, for any damages which he may suffer in consequence of employing him. Thus, where one was induced by a false character to employ a servant who afterwards robbed him to a large amount, and was convicted of the robbery, the master was held to be entitled to recover to the extent of his loss from the party who gave the false character.
Formerly a settlement was gained by residence in a parish under a contract of hiring and service for a year ; but no settlement can now be gained by such means.