Court Opinion

ID: 9807940
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 20:21:24.696284+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:03:58.917027
License: Public Domain

Clark, C. J.,
dissenting from conclusion: Eully concurring as to the constitutional right of the Legislature to impose penalties upon common carriers for unreasonable delay in the discharge of their duties, and that only one party is entitled to recover the prescribed penalty, it seems to me that whether the plaintiff is an “aggrieved party” upon the facts of this case, was an issue of fact which if raised by plea might have been submitted to the jury, and not a conclusion of law to be determined lipón a motion for nonsuit. The statute does not restrict the recovery to the consignee bxit to the “party aggrieved.”’ Therefore the consignor may be the party aggrieved. Indeed, there are cases, and this may be one of them, in which both the consignor and consignee are “aggrieved.” In such cases, though only one party can recover, the recovery may be had by that one of them which first institutes action, just as where the penalty is given to “any one who shall sue for the same.”
Here the evidence is that the consignor was not paid till after the long-delayed delivery of the goods, and that such delay caused the consignor, the plaintiff, to go to the trouble to look up the goods. The plaintiff lay out of his money during the delay. There is no evidence that the consignee ordered the goods, or was aggrieved by the delay. But concede that presumedly he was, the above evidence that the plaintiff was also aggrieved should have been submitted to the jury. If both the consignor and consignee 'were aggrieved, the question is not which was most aggrieved, but which first instituted the action.
*232The penalty is in the nature of a public regulation to secure the discharge of the duty of delivery of freight without unreasonable delay. The penalty is recoverable by the plaintiff if aggrieved. The above evidence tends to show that the plaintiff suffered some detriment (whether greater than that suffered by the consignee or not is immaterial), and the Judge properly refused the motion to nonsuit. In the recent cases of Grocery Co. v. Railroad, 136 N. C., 396, and Summers v. Railroad, 138 N. C., 295, the Court sustained a recovery of such penalty by the consignor.
The gist of the action is the “unreasonable delay”'by the carrier. Whether the consignor or consignee was most inconvenienced is not material. Either that shows any evidence to that end and first brings the action should be entitled to recover. Unlike the common-law action, it is not necessary to show actual damage.