Case ID: mass_72/html/0450-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Bigelow, J.\n    ", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Elvira P. Morse vs. Connecticut River Railroad Company.
    In an action against a railroad corporation by a passenger for the loss of his trunk, the admissions of the conductor, baggage master or station master, as to the manner of the loss, made in answer to inquiries in behalf of the passenger the next morning after the joss, are admissible in evidence against the corporation.
    Action of tort by a passenger from Springfield to Chicopee on the defendants’ railroad, for the loss of her trunk.
    At the trial in the court of common pleas, the plaintiff introduced the deposition of a man who accompanied her on that occasion, from which Mellen, C. J., at the defendants’ suggestion, ordered the following statement to be stricken out: “ The next morning after the trunk was lost, in accounting for the trank, on my inquiry, either the conductor or baggage master told me that, the night before, a gentleman stepped up and claimed and took a trank of the same description. But the same morning the station agent told me he thought the trunk was carried to Northampton the night before with other baggage.” The jury returned a verdict for the defendants, and the plaintiff alleged exceptions to this ruling.
    
      J Wells, for the plaintiff.
    
      C. W. Huntington, for the defendants.
    The declarations of the defendants’ agents were properly rejected, not having been made while acting within the scope of their authority, nor in relation to a transaction then depending. It was not the province of the conductor, at least, to do any thing about the baggage. The only transaction between the defendants and the plaintiff was the transportation from Springfield to Chicopee, and that was over. These declarations, therefore, were no part of the res gestee. Stiles v. Western Railroad, 8 Met. 44. Cooley v. Norton, 4 Cush. 93. Corbin v. Adams, 6 Cush. 95. 1 Greenl. Ev. § 113, and cases cited. Story on Agency, §§ 134-137.
   Bigelow, J.

The declarations offered in evidence were made by the conductor or the baggage master, and by the station master, “ the next morning after the trunk was lost, in accounting for the trunk,” in answer to inquiries in behalf of the plaintiff". It was part of the duty of those agents to deliver the baggage of passengers, and to account for the same, if missing, provided inquiries for it were made within a reasonable time. These declarations were therefore made by them as agents of the defendants, within the scope of their agency, and while it continued. They should therefore have been admitted.

Exceptions sustained 
      
       Dewey, J. did not sit in this case.