Case Name: R. L. ALLEN v. HOWARD & NANNY
Court: Tennessee Supreme Court
Jurisdiction: Tennessee
Decision Date: 1879-09
Citations: 3 Shan. Cas. 92
Docket Number: 
Parties: R. L. ALLEN v. HOWARD & NANNY.
Judges: 
Reporter: Tennessee Cases with Notes and Annotations
Volume: 3
Pages: 92–93

Head Matter:
R. L. ALLEN v. HOWARD & NANNY.
Knoxville,
September Term, 1879.
1. PLEADING AND PRACTICE. No recovery, if no issue.-
In an action by warrant to recover for “damages for breaking, or causing to be broken, and otherwise injuring a two-horse “hack, the property of the plaintiff,” there cannot be any recovery for any wrong doné him by not returning the hack, because there was no issue- presented on this question.
2. BAILMENT. Bailee must return to bailor the property dam- „ aged without- his fault.
Where the hirers of a hack use it with the prudence and care required by law, and it is overturned and broken .without their fault, so that they are not liable for the damages; still if they leave it, and do not return it to the bailor, they will be liable for the damages for failure to- return it.

Opinion:
Freeman, J.,
delivered the opinion of the court:
This action is brought to recover for "damages for breaking, or causing to be broken, and otherwise injuring a two-horse hack, the property of the plaintiff." This is the language of the warrant.
The case was a hiring by defendants of plaintiff's hack to go to a point some ten or twelve miles. The hack was overturned, broken, and left by the defendants, so that plaintiff had to send for it, the parties not returning it.' On the trial it seems plaintiff claimed, in argument, damages for failure to return the hack.- His honor charged the jury substantially that this depended on the question whether they had used the hack with the prudence and care required by the law, as he had correctly given it to them. In this he w'as probably in error, as the parties would not be excused from returning the property because it had been innocently injured, but were bound to return it to the bailor. See Waite, Act. and Defenses, Yol. 8, 623. Plaintiff can get no benefit, however, from this error, as he has not sued for or charged any wrong done him by not returning the back. No such-issue was presented. The jury were not sworn to try the' question, and therefore it was immaterial, and no .cause for reversal. Let the judgment be affirmed.