Case ID: ga-l-rep_1/html/0488-02.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Hall, J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Cincinnati, New Orleans & Texas Pacific R’y vs. Disbrow & Co.
    ■Case, from City Court of Atlanta. Contracts. Railroads. Live Stock. Evidence. Charge of Court. (Before Judge Clarke).
    [This case was argued at the last term, and the decision reserved].
   Hall, J.

Where suit was brought for damages to live stock, occurring •from want of proper feeding, watering and attention during a through .shipment over a railroad and its connecting lines, and the plaintiffs contended that the only written contract of shipment was contained in ithe bill of lading, and that one of them had a certain verbal agreement with the agent of the defendant as to obtaining a free ticket, or a ticket .at a reduced rate, while the defendant contended that the shipment was made under a special written contract, signed by its agent and the person who delivered the stock as the agent for the plaintiffs, in which •contract it was specified that one of the plaintiffs was to accompany the stock on the route and to attend to loading, unloading and watering them, and to relieve the company from all responsibility for their safe transportation except damage as resulted from defendant’s negligence, and where it appeared that the person delivering the stock to the defendant returned to one of the plaintiffs the contract which was signed in duplicate, together with the bill of lading and an order for a ticket at ■reduced rates, and that such plaintiff obtained the ticket, and travelled, upon a passenger train, instead of the train containing the stock, the court should have submitted to the jury whether the contract of shipment was that contended for by the plaintiff or by the defendant, and if they found the latter, whether the injury complained of resulted from the plaintiff’s failure to comply with the stipulations of the written -contract or from the negligence of the defendant; and it was error to withhold this issue from tbe jury. Central Railroad vs. Bryan (Sept. Term, 1884).

Julius L. Brown; W. D. Ellis, for plaintiff in error.

E. A. Angier; Alex C. King, for defendants.

(a) The defendant having shown that the written contract relied ■on by it was signed in duplicate, and that the contract in their possession had been destroyed by a flood, and the plaintiffs failing to produce that in their possession or in any manner account for it, the defendant •could introduce a copy of the contract in evidence.

Judgment reversed.