Case ID: ill-app_187/html/0390-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Mr. Justice Duncan", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

L. R. Van Allen, Defendant in Error, v. Western Union Telegraph Company, Plaintiff in Error.
    Gen. No. 18,556.
    (Not to be reported in full.)
    Error to the Municipal Court of Chicago; the Hon. John D. Turnbaugh, Judge, presiding. Heard in the Branch Appellate Court at the October term, 1912.
    Reversed and remanded.
    Opinion filed June 24, 1914.
    Statement of the Case.
    Action by L. E. Van Allen against Western Union Telegraph Company in assumpsit to recover damages for loss of time and expenditures resulting from an error in the transmission of a telegram. The telegram delivered by plaintiff to defendant for transmission to plaintiff was as follows:
    “If any mail or telegram for me there now, please forward to St. Paul, care Frederic Hotel, to arrive be- ' fore four p. m. July 10th, after that hold.”
    
      Abstract of the Decision.
    1. Telegraphs and telephones, § 31
      
      —Mobility for failure to transmit messages correctly. While it is the duty of a telegraph company to transmit the messages correctly as delivered to it, its liability for its failure to do so is the actual damages occasioned by reason of the breach of the contract
    2. Telegraphs and telephones, § 36*—burden of proof. In an action against a telegraph company for damages resulting from error in the transmission of a telegram, the burden is on the plaintiff to show that he was damaged and what his damages consisted of.
    3. Telegraphs and telephones, § 37*—when recovery for error in telegram not sustained by the evidence. In an action against a telegraph company for loss of time and expenditures resulting to plaintiff from an error in the transmission of a telegram, evidence held insufficient to sustain a recovery for loss of time and insufficient to sustain the amount recovered for expenditures, there being no evidence of what plaintiff’s daily earnings were and no evidence that the error in the transmission was the cause of different items of expenses.
    In the course of transmission the word “Frederic” was changed to “Filday,” with the result that plaintiff never received his mail in St. Paul. To reverse a judgment in favor of plaintiff for $58.60, defendant prosecutes a writ of error.
    West & Eckhart, for plaintiff in error.
    Bell & Cross, for defendant in error.
    
      
      See Illinois Notes Digest, Vols XI to XV, and Cumulative Quarterly, same topic and section number.
    
   Mr. Justice Duncan

delivered the opinion of the court.