Court Opinion

ID: 9809084
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 21:00:33.732264+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:24:49.974381
License: Public Domain

*382CoNHOR, J\,
concurring: I concur in tbe conclusion reached in this case, with much Hesitation, and only in deference to the controlling authorities' cited in the opinion. If an open question I should hold that when a telegram is received by an operator after office hours, as a matter of accommodation, the sender would be fixed with notice that the undertaking to deliver the message was not in the discharge of a public duty, but was a special contract to be interpreted in the light of the time, the surrounding conditions, etc.; that the measure of duty would be the exercise of ordinary care in delivering the message carrying no presumption of negligence in failing to make prompt delivery — the burden of proof being upon the plaintiff to show negligence. The courts, however, seem to have decided that the acceptance of the message, after office hours, is a waiver of such hours, imposing the same measure oj: duty and raising the same presumption as if received during office hours. The rule, in my opinion, is a very harsh one. The basis upon which the rigid rule and presumption is justified, when messages are sent during office hours, does not obtain. If we could accept the uncontradicted statement of the operator, I could see no negligence in his conduct, but as there is a presumption of negligence, the question whether it was rebutted was for the jury and we are bound by their verdict. I cannot assent to the proposition that he was required to, or would have been justified in, picking up a hotel porter, or some straggler around a depot at midnight to deliver the message. To have done so would have been negligence. I think that he was negligent in that he did not promptly, upon receipt of a message showing the urgent necessity for immediate delivery, notify the sending office that he could not deliver it. He should not have taken the message. This, however, is not the cause of action set forth. The case is a hard one. The defendant may in the future protect itself by an absolute refusal to take a message after office hours. This would seem *383to be tbe only way open to it in such cases. Whether, those who are often in sore need of its extraordinary service will be compensated for the loss of it by such recoveries as this, it is not my province or duty to discuss. The law has been declared and I may not change it because of hard cases which are said to be “the quicksands of the law.”
Walker, J., concurs in the concurring opinion.
Brown, J., concurs in the concurring opinion, as well as the opinion of the court.