The Liverpool Standard, and General Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1854-08-15 00:00:00

COUNTY COURT.-17EsTERDA.T.
(Before Joseph Pollock, Esq., Judge.)

IMPORTANT JUDO

A REPORTER'S CLAIM
NORTII-WESTERN RAILWAY CO3IPANY.—In this case t
plaintiff, Mr. Nash, a shorthand-writer from London_
sought to recover £l9 19s. from the London and North-
Western Railway Company for the loss of certain notes
which he had taken at Birkenhead, at a meeting of the
Birkenhead, Lancashire, and Cheshire Railway Company.
After the meeting was over, he left Birkenhead for Lon-
don in a first-class carriage. He got out of the carriage
at Rugby, and during his absence the notes were taken
out of the carriage by one of the company's porters, under
the impression that they had been unintentionally left
there by a passenger who had finally left the train. Plain-
tiff never received them again until they were of no use.
The defendants urged several objections to the claim, their
main defence being that the articles had never been so deli-
vered to them as to render them responsible for their safe
custody. His Honour now gave judgment at great length.
He referred to a decision of Baron Parke, in a case against
the Great Northern Company, as to what constituted
railway passengers' "luggage," in which that learned
judge had decided that luggage comprised " such articles
as a traveller usually carries with him for personal con-
venience. Perhaps even a small present, or a book for a
journey, might be included in the term." His Honour,
in continuation, observed that it was difficult to decide
whether the articles in this case could be called luggage,
but he was inclined to think that, under the peculiar cir-
cumstances of the case, they were so to be considered.
That, however, was not material, because, on the second
point raised by the company, he was of opinion that the
articles in question were never so entrusted to the com-
pany's custody as to render them responsible for their
safe carriage. Although it was true that in the case
Causey v. Richardson, 23 L. J., Q. B. 217, Lord Camp-
bell had said, " The luggage of a passenger by railway,
though never delivered to any servant of the company,
and remaining in the personal keeping of the passenger
daring the journey, is, nevertheless, in point of law, in
the custody of the company, so as to render them liable
for its loss by the negligence of their servants." But
Lord Campbell was speaking of a case in which the pas-
senger's luggage, though not delivered to the company's
servants, was openly deposited in a place in which, by the
company's regulations,such luggage might properly be put.
After citing several other cases, in which it had been de-
cided that railway companies were, under certain circum-
stances, responsible for the loss of a passenger's articles,
which he might have with him in the carriage in which
he was travelling, his Honour said that applying the prin-
ciple laid down to the facts now before him, considering
that the articles in question were not delivered to the
company's servants, and were not openly or notoriously
taken by the plaintif into the carriage in which he tra-
velled, but were retained entirely under his personal control
and custody, and carried, without the cognizance of the
defendants, about his (plaintiff's) person. Until they were
deposited in the seat of the carriage, he did not think they
were ever so conveyed to the custody of the defendants,
as to render them responsible for their safe carriage. The
question was undoubtedly one of great importance both to
railway companies and to the public, and he could have
wished that his decision might be subjected to the review
of a higher tribunal.

IE LONDON ♦ND

COLLISION CASE.—WOODHALL AND ANO. v. Noscow.
—The damages were here laid at £l2, which were claimed
against the defendant by the plaintiff, for injuries sustained
to his vessel, lying in the river, off the Canning-dock, by
the neglect of the defendant in runing another vessel into
her. Verdict for the plaintiff.

WOODWARD V. MARTIN.—ANOTHER COLLISION CASE.
—This was also a collision case, in which the plaintiff, the
owner of the cutter yacht Mirage, sought to recover the
sum of £34 ss. 9d., the amount of damage alleged to have
been incurred by him, in consequence of a collision on the
Bth of June last, with the steamer Nimrod, of which the
defendant, a licensed pilot, was then in charge. Verdict
for the plaintiff.—The other cases tried during the day
were devoid of all public interest.