Court Opinion

ID: 9829830
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 19:39:29.923862+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:43:07.084136
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing.
[8] In the original opinion, we stated, in disposing of the second assignment of error, that one of the appellants, the Ft. Worth & Denver City Railway Company, was the only defendant setting up a provision of the contract requiring 120 days’ notice of damage for loss, injury, delay, or decline in the market as a condition precedent to the right to sue for damages, and further stat*1098ed that this plea was not sworn to. In this statement we were in error. The plea was sworn to, and the .plea was made jointly by the Ft. Worth & Denver City Railway Company and the Wichita Valley Railway Company. The appellee Boger excepted to this answer: (a) Because the reply does not state'facts tending to show that such stipulation in said contract was reasonable; (b) because the said contract, as quoted in defendant’s said answer, shows-upon its face the right of the general freight agent or auditor of said defendant to waive such notice, and said answer does not show that such waiver was not given. The court sustained these exceptions, and struck out that part of the answer. If the court was in error in sustaining the exceptions as made, the question is: Was' it such an error as will reverse the case? The contracts of shipment were made between M. W. Boger and the Pecos & Northern Texas Railway Company January 15, 1913, at Novice, a station on that road. The contracts bound that road and the connecting carriers to deliver the cattle of M. W: Boger — eight cars of cattle — at Jolly, Clay County, Tex., and four cars at Vernon, Tex. The consideration was stated therein and the contracts provided that their terms should apply and inure to the benefit of each connecting carrier, and all of the defendant railway companies joined in the introduction of these contracts. The Ft. Worth & Denver City Railway Company was the delivering carrier in both shipments, and the Pecos & Northern Texas Railway Company was the initial carrier. The Pecos & Northern Texas Railway Company’s contracts had a 91 days’ provision, and set up a failure of Boger to give notice in accordance therewith. ■ Upon exception by Boger this plea was stricken out. There is no assignment briefed to this action of the court. The statement of facts shows that all the defendant railway companies introduced the Pecos & Northern Texas bill of lading, and that bill of lading so introduced provides that the shipper should give notice of the claim for damages to the railway company in writing within 91 days after damages occurred. The answer of the Ft. Worth & Denver City Railway Company and .the Wichita Valley Railway Company set up that the notice required to be given after damage was to be presented within 120 days. The answers of these two roads do not allege that they made separate contracts from that entered into by the Pecos & Northern Texas Railway . Company, the initial carrier. We think that the Denver Railway Company, by its answer, having failed to allege that it did not accept or acquiesce in the through bill of lading executed by the Pecos & Northern Texas Railway Company, that articles 731 and 732, R. C. S., will apply, and that the contracts made by the initial carrier will be deemed to be the contracts of each of ■ such connecting common carriers. It will be noted that the answer of the defendant the Ft. Worth & Denver does not allege that the provision set out was independent of the original contract made by the initial carrier, and the contract introduced in evidence in this case providing for 91 days was clearly a variance from the allegations of the Ft. Worth & Denver City, and this road does not allege that it was on one of its bills of lading or blanks, or that it was a new and independent contract from that originally entered into by the initial carrier, but simply alleges that it was made for a valuable consideration before the transportation of said cattle was undertaken by the defendants.
Under the facts as proven and under the condition in which we find the pleadings, we hold that there was no error showing injury in sustaining the exceptions of Boger to the Ft. Worth & Denver City Railway Company’s answer.
We have concluded that the motion should be overruled.