sheriff liable on his surety bond for acts of deputy; "If there be a nonfeasance or neglect of duty by the under-sheriff, the sheriff alone is responsible to the party injured . . . ."
How later courts described this case
- sheriff liable on his surety bond for acts of deputy; "If there be a nonfeasance or neglect of duty by the under-sheriff, the sheriff alone is responsible to the party injured . . . ."
- “If there be a nonfeasance of neglect of duty by the under-sheriff, the sheriff alone is responsible to the party injured ....”
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
DeyiN, J.,
dissenting:
A careful consideration of this case leads me to the conclusion that by virtue of cb. 451, Public-Local Laws of 1929 (applicable only to Forsyth County), tbe status of a deputy sheriff as an employee of tbe county is thereby recognized and established, since by sec. 6 of tbe act express authority is given tbe county with reference to fee as well as salaried deputies. Tbe statutory definitions of “employee,” “employer,” and “employment” are comprehensive enough to include tbe service of a deputy sheriff. Certainly tbe uncontroverted facts establish that tbe deceased deputy sheriff, Jessie J. Styers, serving under appointment by tbe sheriff, lost bis life while engaged in serving-papers for tbe county of Forsyth for which tbe county would have bad to pay him, and it was found as a fact by tbe Industrial Commission that tbe injury resulting in bis death arose out of and in tbe course of bis employment, if be were at tbe time an employee of tbe county or tbe sheriff.
Tbe bolding of this Court that the deputy sheriff is an employee neither of the county nor tbe sheriff leaves bis employment status as a species of nullius filius — he is employed by nobody — yet be serves.
I am authorized to say that Clarkson, J., concurs in this dissenting-opinion, and that Schenck, J., concurs in dissent from that part of tbe majority opinion which bolds that tbe deputy is not an employee of the sheriff.