Court Opinion

ID: 9826396
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 15:53:39.510398+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:42:02.895782
License: Public Domain

Mr. ChiEE Justice Jones.

I concur in judgment- of reversal.

1 1. While punitive damages are recoverable in actions of claim and delivery, under the Act of February 13, 190?, in my opinion there was no testimony reasonably tending to show that defendant wantonly disregarded any right of plaintiff ,and the jury should have been so instructed upon defendant’s request.
The testimony tends to show that the freight arrived at its destination July 3, 190?, and next morning plaintiff was notified of the arrival in bad condition, with request that he come to the depot, check up the cigars, receive them, and make claim for damages. Plaintiff declined to go to the depot to check the goods, on the ground that he would have to close his store to do so. Defendant’s agent requested that he send a responsible person to check up the goods. Plaintiff sent no one for the goods but Sam Sandifer, an ignorant young negro, and it is undisputed that *461he declared to defendant’s agent that he could not count the cigars. The practice of defendant at the time, in case of a concealed damage, was to request the consignee to check up the damage at the depot before delivery of goods. In this instance the cigars were in smáll boxes, contained in a case. A hole had been broken in the top of the case and some of the cigar boxes taken ouf and others interfered with. To ascertain the exact loss would require the opening of the case and count of the cigars. Acting under the instructions of the claim agent, the station agent declined to deliver the goods until checked up by the consignee, or his responsible representative, at the depot. It is manifest that defendant’s agent had the right to decline to accept any proposition of plaintiff that involved the delivery or checking the goods at any other place than defendant’s depot or warehouse. It may be conceded that defendant might have accepted plaintiff’s offer to accept defendant’s count of the cigars; but in view of'the concealed loss or damage, requiring opening of the case or package, the practice of the agent in such condition, the instructions of the claim agent, and in view of the prospect of the filing of the claim for damages, the declination to deliver the goods until properly checked at the depot was not so unreasonable as to warrant an inference that defendant acted in wilful breach of duty. On the contrary, it is plain that defendant’s agent acted in the belief that it was within his duty to all concerned to have consignee present in checking up the goods before delivery. Gwynn v. Citizens' Tel. Co., 69 S. C., 434. The verdict first rendered shows that the jury excluded punitive damages.
2 2. By the terms of the Act- of 1907, enacted after the decision in Tittle v. Kennedy, 71 S. C., 1, damages, both actual and punitive, are recoverable in actions of claim and delivery. This statute was doubtless intended to make the general law as to damages applicable in such actions. “Actual” damages include all com*462pensatory damages, ■ whether general or special. In the absence of any expression showing intention to limit actual damages to general damages, to the exclusion of special damages, it would seem to follow that the intention was to allow recovery of special damages in such actions. But in order to recover special damages, the general rule is that there must be allegation and proof that defendant had notice of the special circumstances at the time of the contract. Kolb v. Ry., 81 S. C., 536, 62 S. E., 872; Towles v. A. C. & R. Ry., infra, 501.
In this case, while the complaint alleged notice of special circumstances at the time of shipment, there was a total failure of evidence to show such notice. The only testimony as to notice of special circumstances was the notice given after the arrival of the freight.
Hence it was error to refuse defendant’s request to instruct the jury that there was no evidence of special damages in this case.