Case ID: ky_55/html/0302-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Judge Crenshaw", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Steamboat Crystal Palace vs. Vanderpool.
    APREAL PROM LOUISVILLE CHANCERY COURT.
    Steamboat owners are regarded and held to the responsibilities of common carriers; but are not responsible to passengers for the loss of their wearing apparel which they carry about their person, and not delivered to the officers of the boat as baggage for safe keeping.
    The facts of the case are stated in the opinion of the Court. Rep.
    
    
      Barret Wood for appellant—
    If the boat and owners are legally liable to compensate appellee for his loss it must be upon tbe principle which renders inn-keepers responsible, or by the rigid rules applicable to common carriers.
    It is supposed that the boat is not responsible as an inn-keeper would be. The boat is not required to obtain a license to entertain. It is confined to no particular locality — running- from one commercial point to another, as interest may prompt. Inn-keepers obtain a license for a particular locality, and are bound to receive and entertain when requested. It might be different if the boat had been a regular packet plying between designated points, asking the traveling community for their patronage. Such was not the case here. The appellee was not a guest, in the technical sense, but a boarder: and the boat owners not liable as inn-keepers. See 1 Parsons on Con., 628, in which the author uses this language: “In this country it is very common for persons to become boarders at an inn, and they cease to be guests in such a sense as to hold the inn-keeper, to his peculiar liability, and on the other hand give him his lien. 'We take the distinction between the guest and the boarder to be this: the guest comes without any bargain for time, remains without one, may go when he pleases, paying only for the actual entertainment he receives, and it is not enough to make him a boarder and not a guest that he had staid a long time in the inn in this way, &c.”
    The boat cannot be made liable in this case, as common carriers, for these reasons:
    1. The loss was not the result of the carelessness of the officers of the boat, but of the negligence and indiscretion of the appellee himself.
    2. But if the loss was the result of the defect in the fastenings of the door of the state-room occupied by the appellee, yet there is no liability. The pi-oof shows that the goods lost were never committed to the care of the officers of the boat, but retained by the appellee under his own care — in such cases the owner must bear the loss himself. See Angel on the Law of Carriers, page 9M-, section, 8*8®-: “The carrier is not responsible for the safe delivery of án article of baggage which the owner has kept entirely within his own custody.” “The baggage must be fairly in the custody of the carrier.” (Same book, p. -iiSg section 113; Parsons on Contracts, vól. 1, p. 690, note V: also Story on Bailments.)
    We ask a reversal.
    
      G. A. 4* I. Caldwell on the same side—
    By the common law carriers are held to very strict responsibility for goods delivered to be conveyed; and carriers of persons by land or water are under an implied obligation, growing out of the contract to carry the person, almost if not quite as stringent as to the baggage of the passenger as carriers of goods. But this implied obligation has reference only to what is usually denominated baggage, and then only when placed in the custody or under the control of the carrier. The doctrine has never been held to embrace the clothing worn by the passenger, or to his watch, pocket-money, or jewelry worn upon or canied about the person. (9 Wendell, 117 ; 10 Ohio Reports, 145.) In these cases the carrier was held liable because the articles were placed in a trunk and placed in the possession of the carrier.
    It is said in Hawkins vs. Hoffman, 6 Hill, 189, that no contract is implied to carry any thing safely which is not usually earned as baggage; money, clothing, and valuables carried about the person are not baggage, and a carrier is not responsible for their loss. (Tower vs. Utica and S. R. Co., 7 Hill, 47; Story on Bailm.ents, secs. 532,3, page 578; Angel on Law of Common Carriers, secs. 332 and 113 ; Blanchard vs. Isaacs, 3 Barb. Supreme Court Reports, 388; King vs. Shepherd, 3 Story, 349.)
    The application of any principle of the civil law to the case is not admitted. It is by the common law this case must be decided, and not the civil law. We deny that the law can be changed to keep pace with modem improverh'ents without legislation.
    
      The law will not imply any obligation to convey or keep safely that which the appellee had under his own charge in his room, and under a full knowledge of the insecurity of the fastenings to the door; and he knew that there was a safe on the boat where the valuables and money could have been secure if committed to the officers of the boat. The loss was the result of the imprudence and gross neglect of the appellee, and there is no responsibility. (Armstead vs. White, 6 English Law and Equity Reports, 349.)
    The following authorities are referred to as bearing on the case: Story on Bailments, sec. 544, et seq. 604, 601, 590, 595, et seq.; Brigham vs. Rogers, 6 Watts cy Sargeant, 495; Lang vs. Colder, 8 Barr. Penn., 479; 1 BouviePs Institutes, sec. 1036; Abbot on Shipping, part 3, C. 3, L. 11.
    We unite in asking a reversal.
    
      Bullitt & Smith for appellee—
    The common law is unquestionably a progressive science ; it has adapted itself to the various exigencies of its adventurous sons. The same common law that governs the tens and hundreds of Saxons of England, has adapted itself, under a wise judiciary, to meet the wants of millions in every climate, and on every continent. This progress has always been healthful, since it has been in the direction of fixed principles, and by their application to the continually changing phases of an advancing civilization.
    It is on this principle of advance in well settled principles that success is expected, in this case, for the appellee.
    Since the introduction of steam navigation the duties and liabilities of common carriers have been enlarged. The vast difference between the discomforts of a sailing vessel and a flatboat is too striking to need notice. What might once have been rashness and imprudence in a passenger might now be considered great care. Once the traveler looked to his own safety and protection; the carrier now, in the advance of the age, agrees to take care of him, and this adds not a little to his comfort.
    The common carrier in this age has added to his business that of inn-keeper; he not only transports his passenger but he feeds and lodges him — not as he would transport cattle, but he furnishes him with every luxury as a first class hotel would; he offers every inducement for the traveler to throw himself upon his hospitality — to come as gentlemen and ladies to enjoy a delightful excursion, and not as adventurers ; the passenger is authorized to feel as safe as if in a hotel.
    The common carrier has assumed the province of an inn-keeper, and ought to be held accountable as such. This is an application of a fixed principle in a legitimate direction.
    2. We say that as common carriers the appellant is liable on the ground of liability for the traveler’s baggage, which we contend means “such articles of necessity and personal convenience as are usually carried by travelers.” (Angelón Carriers, 116; Borders vs. Dan, 25 "Wendell, 459; Hawkins vs. Hoffman, 6 Hill, 506; Camden and Amboy Railroad vs. Brooks, 13 Wendell, 611; Orange County Bank vs. Brun, 9 lb., 85.) The distinction is this: common carriers are not liable for goods and merchandise put in trunks and passed as baggage, nor for large sums of money, but only for such conveniences as the habits of a traveler demand for his comfort, but this is not to be measured by any fixed rule, but depends upon many circumstances applicable to the means, habits, and business of the' traveler. The carrier receives a compensation not merely for the transportation of the traveler from place to place, but for the safekeeping of his person and baggage at the place of destination. And shall he be responsible for the valise and a few articles of necessary apparel, and not for the watch under the sleeper’s head, or coat upon the state-room wall, which are subject to exactly the same casualty, and demanding the same sort of pro-Section ? The coat does not change its character as baggage by being on oi off the traveler. The clothes, the watch, the diamond pin, and money, did not change its character of baggage by being laid off for the night in the state-room.
    The court is referred to the opinion of the chancellor for what is or ought to be the law of the case.
    October 13.
   Judge Crenshaw

delivered the opinion of the Court.

Vanderpool having been robbed of his gold watch and chain, and diamond breast-pin and a sum of money, on his passage on the steamboat Crystal Palace from Paducah to Louisville, brought this suit against the boat to recover compensation for his loss. He occupied on the trip state-room No. 10, and, before retiring to rest on the night of the larceny, he communicated to a servant on the boat the fact that the lock on his room door was out of order, and that the door could not be fastened ; he was told by the servant that there was no way to fasten it except to a put a chair and his baggage against it, which he did. The watch and chain, breast-pin, and money were worn and carried on the person of the plaintiff, and on retiring to bed they were placed on a chair, and a shirt thrown over them. On the following morning the articles were discovered to have been stolen during the night.

Steamboats are, in some respects, analogous to inns, and it would greatly promote the ease, comfort, and safety of the traveling community if their owners were held responsible to the same extent that innkeepers are ; but, so far as we know, they have never been held accountable upon the principles applicable to inn-keepers, and we suppose that thousands, of instances have occurred on steamboats, of depredations like the one perpetrated on the plaintiff, and yet we have heard of no case in which the principles of law governing inn-keepers have been extended to steamboat owners, except in the case under consideration. The chancellor,' regarding the safety of the traveling community of the highest importance, and judging that reason and propriety required that steamboat owners should be held responsible in cases like this, determined that the defendant should pay the plaintiff for his loss. But altho’ we concur with the chancellor in the importance of the subject, and thinkjhiat there are many good.reassons why the responsibility of the owners of steamboats should be enlarged, we know of no principle of the common law which will authorize a recovery in this case, and we have no statute upon the subject. We do not feel authorized, therefore, in the absence of any statutory regulations, and any common law authority upon the subject, to establish a new rule and apply a new principle, but think that the matter is one peculiarly of legislative cognizance.

Steamboat owners are regarded and held to the responsibilities of common carriers; but are not responsible to pas sengers for the loss of their wearing apparel which they carry about their person, and not aelirered to the officers of the bo at as baggage for safe keeping

Steamboat owners are regarded as common carriers, and are subject to the well established principles governing their responsibilities; and we are not aware of any principle by which common carriers can he held responsible for the wearing apparel of the passenger, or his money which he carries upon his person, and which is under his own immediate care and control. When such things are made baggage, and are delivered to the owners or their agents, the rule is different, and their responsibility is regulated by the established rules in reference to the baggage of passengers.

The fact that the lock was out of order, and that this was made known to a servant, cannot, in our opinion, make the boat responsible as a common carrier — the plaintiff choosing to- retain the articles under his own care, instead of delivering them into the care and custody of the officers, especially as the conduct and declarations of the plaintiff were calculated to invite the depredations committed upon him.

Wherefore the judgment is reversed, and the cause remanded that the petition may be dismissed.