Title: Bankers Warehouse Company v. Bennett

State: colorado

Issuer: Colorado Supreme Court

Document:

365 P.2d 889 (1961) BANKERS WAREHOUSE COMPANY, Plaintiff in Error, v. A. W. BENNETT d/b/a Bennett Distributing Co., Defendant in Error. No. 19589. Supreme Court of Colorado. In Department. November 6, 1961. Wormwood, O'Dell & Wolvington, Charles M. Dosh, Denver, for plaintiff in error. Henry & Keating, Denver, for defendant in error. MOORE, Justice. We will refer to the parties as follows: plaintiff in error as the warehouse or defendant, and defendant in error as Bennett or plaintiff. Plaintiff is a dealer in nuts. He alleged in his complaint that between March 30 and June 12, 1956, he stored with the warehouse approximately 25,000 pounds of nut meats; that three separate warehouse receipts were issued to him upon delivery of the shipment to the warehouse; and that the said nut meats were received by the warehouse in good condition. He further alleged that defendant: Plaintiff sought damages allegedly sustained by reason of the contamination of the nut meats while stored in the defendant's warehouse. Against the full amount of damages allegedly sustained, plaintiff credited the sum of $5,548.83, the amount received by him upon sale of the nut meats following contamination. *890 By answer defendant denied any negligence on its part, and alleged that any damage sustained by plaintiff was, "* * * due to causes not originating in the warehouse and beyond the control of this defendant"; that the warehouse receipt issued to plaintiff and accepted by him contained a stipulation that the defendant would not be responsible for any loss occasioned by, "* * * any cause not originating in the warehouse or by any cause beyond the control of the warehouseman"; and that the defendant had at all times exercised that degree of care with regard to said nut meats, which would ordinarily be exercised by a reasonably careful owner of similar merchandise in protecting the same from damage. Defendant further alleged that the plaintiff had failed to promptly dispose of the said nut meats in such manner as to mitigate the damages, and sought by counterclaim to recover the sum of $102.66 claimed to be due for storage. Trial to the court resulted in findings and judgment for the plaintiff in the amount of $16,428.52 and costs. The court's findings of fact contained the following: By this language the trial court referred to the arrival of the nut meats at the warehouse and it is unquestioned that "during the summer of 1956" the warehouse had complete control over the merchandise. We have read the transcript of evidence and find ample support therein to sustain the findings in this particular. It is argued here by counsel for defendant that plaintiff failed as a matter of law to sustain the burden of proof in establishing the negligence, or the lack of due care of the defendant. Further findings of the trial court relating to the clause in the receipts issued by the warehouse, which provided immunity from liability for damage "by any cause not originating in the warehouse or by any cause beyond the control of the warehouseman," were as follows: There is sufficient competent evidence shown by the record to support this finding. Defendant argues in effect that some specific act of omission or commission must be shown by plaintiff to establish negligence on the part of the warehouse. The transaction involved amounts to a bailment, subject to the provisions of C.R.S. '53, 146-2-1 et seq., dealing generally with "Warehouses." 146-2-14 provides in pertinent part: The court properly found, as we must in this case, that the nut meats were received by the warehouse in good marketable condition, and the question is,whether the warehouseman, if he had been the owner engaged in the sale, storage and distribution of nut meats, would permit them to be stored with or come in contact with anything which would impregnate them with an odor of moth balls or naphthalene, as occurred in the instant case. One engaged in such a business would presumably know of the susceptibility of nut meats to absorb or acquire the taste and odor of such substance, *891 and take measures to guard against resulting contamination. Defendant was bailee of the nut meats. The plaintiff offered testimony establishing that the nuts were contaminated when withdrawn from the warehouse. No specific acts of negligence were shown. Under the law applicable to such a situation a presumption of negligence on the part of the bailee at once arises, and the burden of going forward with evidence to overcome this presumption rested on the defendant. Nutt v. Davison, 54 Colo. 586, 131 P. 390, 44 L.R.A.,N.S., 1170; Wheelock Bros. Inc. v. Bankers Warehouse Company, et al., 115 Colo. 197, 171 P.2d 405, 168 A.L.R. 939. Here it was incumbent upon the defendant to show that the nut meats were not contaminated by reason of its negligence. This it failed to do. The effect of the rule requiring the bailee to meet the presumption of negligence arising under such circumstances, is to place the burden upon the one best able to discharge it. While some confusion exists in the decisions from other jurisdictions, this court has adopted the reasoning of the Court of Appeals of Indiana in the case of Holt Ice & Cold Storage Co. v. Arthur Jordan Co., 25 Ind.App. 314, 57 N.E. 575, 580, from which we quote the following: Other points argued are without substantial merit. It cannot be said from the record in this case as a matter of law that plaintiff failed to act in a reasonable manner in his efforts to dispose of the damaged product. There was no failure to mitigate the damage. The warehouse was given all the credit to which it was entitled on account of the sale of the damaged merchandise. The judgment is affirmed. HALL, C. J., and DAY, J., concur.