Court Opinion

ID: 9813006
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 22:53:37.385142+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:27:35.227543
License: Public Domain

Douglas, J.,
dissenting. I • am not disposed to dissent from the principles of law so ably laid down by the Court in its opinion, as far' as I understand them; but I fail to see the legal or logical connection between its premises and its conclusion. I do not think that the primary meaning of the word “transport” is simply to remove. It is from the Latin 'wov(i‘ctrcmsporta/re” compounded from the words “trims’’ meaning over or beyond, and “portare ” to carry. It does not mean' simply to remove from one place, but includes also the idea of carrying to another place. And yet I agree with the Court that the Legislature did not intend to impose the penalty where the transportation was begun, but not completed within the four days mentioned in the statute. To my mind its clear intention was that the transportation should be begun within four days, that is within ninety-six hours after receipt of the goods, and should be continuously carried on and completed within a reasonable time. It certainly did not mean that the railway company could lawfully leave, the goods at the initial point for four days, then transport them a mile or so and leave them there for forty-eight hours, and then transport them another mile or so with another forty-eight hours delay, and so on for perhaps a month. Neither did it mean that the railway company could keep *170the goods for a week or a month, and then say to thé owner “prove if yon can where the goods have been all this time.” The railway company alone knows where they have been, and alone has the means of proving it. To place the burden of directly proving it upon the plaintiff deprives him of all remedy for a substantial injury under guise of a rule of evidence. If the circumstances tend to prove the plaintiff’s case it should be left to the jury, who alone can say what they do prove. If circumstantial evidence is sufficient to hang a man, I do not see why it is not sufficient in a civil suit to fasten upon a common carrier the just responsibility resulting from its breach of public duty.
The opinion of the Court says: “There is not in this case the slightest evidence as .to the essential fact to be proved.” I presume it refers to the delay at Cumnock. Let us see about that. There is evidence that the car-load of lumber was received for shipment by the defendant on May 28, and was delivered to the plaintiffs on June 4, seven days thereafter. It is also in evidence that both Cumnock and Graham, the terminal points of the shipment, are within this State, and on roads operated by the defendant, and that there was only fifteen stations between them. Allowing ten miles as an average between stations, but which is much above the average, there would be only one hundred and fifty miles of transportation, which, at twenty miles per hour, would require only seven and a half hours. I do not know to what extent this Court will take judicial cognizance of the geography of its own State. If it takes any we will know that Cumnock is in Chatham County on the Sanford and Mount Airy branch of the Southern Railway fifty-four miles south of Greensboro, and Graham on the North Carolina division of said railway twenty-three miles this side of Greensboro. The entire distance between Cumnock and Graham would therefore be seventy-seven miles. It seems to us that, with or *171without sucb judicial coguizauce, under the circumstances m this case, the fact that seven days elapsed between the receipt and delivery of this lumber is sufficient evidence from which the jury might reasonably infer that it was not transported from Cumnock within the four days allowed by law. It is -difficult to believe that it would require three days to transport an unbroken car-load seventy-seven miles, or that one mile per hour is a reasonable rate of speed over the greatest trunk line of the South. If there are other facts tending to exculpate the defendant they are peculiarly within its own knowledge and should be alleged and proved by it.
Clark, C. J. concurs in the dissenting opinion.