Court Opinion

ID: 9809776
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 21:27:08.773463+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:14:22.747348
License: Public Domain

Clark, 0. J.,
concurring in tbe opinion of tbe Court: For reasons of tbe soundest public policy, it has always been settled law that a common carrier cannot contract for either total or *248partial exemption from loss occasioned by its own negligence. The shipper and the common carrier are not on equal terms. The shipper must send his freight by the common carrier or not at all. He is therefore entirely at the mercy of the carrier unless protected by the higher power of the law against being forced into contracts limiting the carrier’s liability.
In this case the evidence of negligence of the carrier is abundant and has been found by the jury. Therefore the carrier could not by any alleged contract relieve itself from liability for any part of the damages caused by its own negligence. The fact that it offered to carry the stock on the common-law basis of liability for its own negligence if the shipper would pay $650 extra, but would take off the $650, provided it was relieved against liability for its own negligence for all above $100 per animal, should not be seriously considered in the light • of the decisions and of the “reason of the thing.” In the language of the great dramatist (Henry VIII.,.Act 5, Sc. 3), the device is “too thin and bare to hide the offense.”
The shipper was entitled to have his stock carried at the rate at which they were actually carried, which is evidently the current rate fixed by competition, and with the common-law liability on the carrier to pay the full extent of any damages caused by its own negligence. The carrier had no right to require $650 additional freight by way of insurance to shipper against its own negligence, since that is a liability which is assumed by the very nature of the contract of carriage.
A provision limiting liability to an agreed amount is invalid if the injury was caused by the carrier’s negligence. Everett v. R. R., 138 N. C., 71; Capehart v. R. R., 81 N. C., 438; Gardner v. R. R., 127 N. C., 293; McConnell v. R. R., 144 N. C., 90. This has also been held in England, Alabama, California, Colorado, District of Columbia, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, and Texas. See cases, collected 12 Ann. Gas., 1131-1134.
It is true that in Hart v. R. R., 112 U. S., 331, that Court was led away by some means to disregard this principle which has been so long and so uniformly held and the maintenance of *249which in its integrity is so necessary to the business interests of this country, which are largely dependent upon fair treatment by the great common carriers. To cure this departure of the Court, Congress passed what is known as the Hepburn Amendment to section 20 of the Interstate Commerce Act (U. S. Comp. Stat., Supp. 1907, p. 906), which provides that the initial carrier is liable for any loss, damage, or injury to the goods caused by it or any connecting carrier, and makes void any contract, receipt, rule, or regulation which attempts to exempt the carrier from this liability. 12 Ann. Oases, 1133, and eases cited.
In R. R. v. Granshaw, 5 Ga. App., 675, it is held that the State courts have jurisdiction of an action arising under the Hepburn Act, and that any limitation of value or preadjustment of damages by a stipulation restricting the recovery of damages to an amount less than the actual loss caused by the carrier’s negligence is void under this act. To same effect, Latta v. R. R. (U. S. S. C. A.), 172 Fed., 850. Under these decisions the doctrine laid down in Hart v. R. R., 112 U. S., 331, is reversed by the Hepburn Act, which restores in its integrity the common-law‘rule that a common carrier cannot contract to be. relieved in whole or in part from liability for damages caused by its negligence. The Pennsylvania Court, in Grogan v. Express Co., 114 Pa., 523, 60 Am. Rep., 360, even prior to the Hepburn Act, refused to follow the decision in Hart v. R. R., supra, and many other courts of repute did the same; and it may be said with some confidence that the best legal thought of the country sustained them. The effect of the Hart case, supra, if unreversed, would have been to place the business interests of the country in the power of the common carriers, for no shipper can contract on equal terms with them.
I agree with Mr. Justice Allen that Jones v. R. R., 148 N. C., 580, and Winslow v. R. R., 151 N. C., 250, should be overruled.