Source: https://openjurist.org/264/us/281
Timestamp: 2019-04-18 10:32:07+00:00

Document:
Argued Feb. 26 and 27, 1924.
Messrs. Francis Raymond Stark, of New York City, and Beverly L. Hodghead, of San Francisco, Cal., for petitioner.
This is a suit against the Telegraph Company for failure to forward and deliver to the plaintiff a message from one Jones, found by the Court below to have been acting as agent for the plaintiff in the matter. The District Court found for the defendant, but the judgment was reversed by the Circuit Court of Appeals, 272 Fed. 223, and at a second trial, in deference to the Circuit Court of Appeals, a judgment was entered for the plaintiff, which was affirmed, 286 Fed. 478. Certiorari granted. 262 U. S. 739, 43 Sup. Ct. 700, 67 L. Ed. 1208.
This telegram was an unrepeated message of the class known as night letter, and was not specially valued or paid for upon a value in excess of $50. It was the duty of the receiving clerk, Margaret Brown, to indorse her initials, the filing time and the amount of toll received, and to place the message on the sending hook for transmission. By inadvertence, although a competent clerk, she put it in a file of earlier messages instead of upon the hook, and it was not sent. The next day Jones's son inquired at the telegraph office for an answer and being told that there was none, asked if they had sent the telegram and was answered yes. On December 3 he asked again and was told that the plaintiff had received the message. Miller was ready and willing to buy the stock until December 5, 1917, and the plaintiff testified that he would have sold if he had received the telegram. Later the stock became worthless. The District Court found that there was no gross negligence but the Circuit Court of Appeals distinguished between a failure to take the first step toward transmission and some later neglect, held that the failure was not and as a matter of public policy could not be within the protection of the terms that we have stated and held the company liable for $4,500 with interest at seven per cent. from June 18, 1918, on which day the plaintiff made a demand.
The plaintiff, the respondent here, does not deny that he is bound by the terms that we have recited. That was assumed below and is established law. Western Union Telegraph Co. v. Esteve, 256 U. S. 566, 41 Sup. Ct. 584, 65 L. Ed. 1094. Those terms apply as definitely to a nondelivery in consequence of a neglect or oversight at the first office as at any other. The moment that the message is received the contract attaches along with the responsibility, and the transit begins. We can perceive no legal distinction between that moment and the next when the message is handed to a transmitting clerk, or that on which a copy is given to a boy at the further end. The hand that holds the paper technically is that of the Company, but no more at the beginning than at the end, and as in fact it is that of servants, reasonable self-protection is allowed to the master against their neglects. One such self-protection sanctioned by the decisions is a valuation of the message, with liberty to the sender to fix a higher value on paying more for it. Adams Express Co. v. Croninger, 226 U. S. 491, 33 Sup. Ct. 148, 57 L. Ed. 314, 44 L. R. A. (N. S.) 257. The plaintiff finds no difficulty in valuing the message now. It was at least equally possible to value it when it was sent. See Western Union Telegraph Co. v. Esteve, 256 U. S. 566, 574, 41 Sup. Ct. 584, 65 L. Ed. 1094; Postal Telegraph-Cable Co. v. Warren-Godwin Lumber Co., 251 U. S. 27, 40 Sup. Ct. 69, 64 L. Ed. 118.
When the message is valued it may be doubted whether the valuation can be affected by the intensity of the vituperative epithet applied to an admitted fault. Kirsch v. Postal Telegraph Cable Co., 100 Kan. 250, 252, 264 Pac. 267. At all events something more would have to be shown than is proved here to take the case out of the general rule. The act of the receiving clerk cannot reasonably be supposed to have been more than a momentary inadvertence. It was not a wilful wrong. The answers to the inquiries were probably the natural consequence of the first error, and the second answer probably was too late to have had any effect upon on the plaintiff's position. See Primrose v. Western Union Telegraph Co., 154 U. S. 1, 15, 14 Sup. Ct. 1098, 38 L. Ed. 883. With regard to the amount of the valuation, if it is too low now, Unrepeated Message Case, 61 Interst. Com. Com'n R. 541, it was reasonable in 1917, Primrose v. Western Union Telegraph Co., 154 U. S. 1, 15, 14 Sup. Ct. 1098. 38 L. Ed. 883; Unrepeated Message Case, 44 Interst. Com. Com'n R. 670. Whatever effect may be given to the judgment of the Commission in the later case, it was not intended to be retroactive. The rules prescribed by the Commission were to take effect on July 13, 1921.
We have not adverted to first clause of the exemption, limiting liability to the amount received for sending the message. Obviously this has a narrower scope than the valuation clause and we should hesitate to hold that it exonerated the defendant in this case. Unrepeated Message Case, 61 Interst. Com. Com'n R. 541.

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