Court Opinion

ID: 9299964
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2022-12-02 17:06:28.417671+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:13:24.261814
License: Public Domain

WOODS, Circuit Judge
(charging jury). The plaintiff claims that the defendant, being a common carrier on the 20th day of May, 18GG, undertook and agreed with plaintiff for a valuable consideration, to transport from Mobile, Alabama, and to deliver to J. B. Alexander & Co., in the city of New York, a sealed package, which the plaintiff on that day delivered to the agent of defendant in Mobile, containing six thousand dollars, the property of the plaintiff. That by and through the negligence and carelessness and improper conduct of the defendant and its servants, said package and its contents were wholly lost to the plaintiff.
Fla intiff further avers that on the 3d day. of June, 18GG, the defendant, as such common carrier, undertook and agreed with plaintiff for a valuable consideration to transport from' Mobile. Alabama, and to deliver to J. B. Alexander & Co., in New York City, another sealed package which the plaintiff on that day delivered to the agents of’ defendant in Mobile, containing five thousand dollars, the property of- the plaintiff, and that by the negligence, carelessness and improper conduct of the defendant and its servants, said last named package and its contents were also wholly lost to the plaintiff. He therefore seeks to recover of the defendant the amount of money contained in said packages, with interest. He has also included in his declaration counts for money had and received, and upon an account stated. The defendant pleads the general Issue, with leave to give in evidence any matter that might be specially pleaded.
This action is brought against the defendant as a common carrier. The undertaking of a common-carrier is to deliver the goods entrusted to him against all events, unless prevented' by1 the act of God, or the public enemy, except where his liability is limited by contract. Before the plaintiff can recover, he must establish his case by proof substantially as he has stated it. Your first inquiry will therefore be, Did the plaintiff deliver the packages containing money; or either of them, to the defendant, to be Carried to New York and delivered as alleged, and did the defendant, for a valuable consideration, undertake and agree to convey them to New York City and deliver them to J. B. Alexander & Co., as the plaintiff avers, and has the defendant failed so to deliver them? On the question of the delivery of the packages to the agent of the defendant in Mobile, and the failure of the defendant to deliver them to J. B. Alexander & Co., in New York, I presume you will have little trouble. .1 do not understand the defendant to controvert these facts. They must be proven, however, to your satisfaction. But the defendant alleges that its lines of business reach only as far north as Lynch-burg, Virginia, on the route to New York City; that this fact was known to plaintiff, and that its. agreement was not to convey the packages to New York, but to convey them to Lynchburg, Virginia, and then safely to deliver them to Adams Express Company; that it did so transport and safely deliver the packages, and that it is therefore not liable to plaintiff for any loss which occurred after such delivery to the Adams Express Company.
You are to decide from the facts in the case, and controlled by the rules of law as I shall give them to you, what the contract of the defendant with the plaintiff was. I instruct you that the reception by an express company of a package for transportation, directed to a point beyond the route of the express company, and the receipt by such company of the entire compensation for the transmission and delivery of the package to the point to which it is directed, makes out a prima facie case of a contract to carry and deliver the package according to the superscription, and will bind the company unless a different contract is shown, or a settled and uniform rule established by the company not to be bound' *173beyond its own line, which rule is brought home to the consignor, either by express notice or by a notoriety so general that he may fairly be presumed to have had notice. If you find the fact to be that the defendant received the packages of the plaintiff directed to J. B. Alexander & Co., New York, for transmission, and received the pay for the entire route from Mobile to New York, then I instruct that prima facie, the plaintiff has shown a contract on the part of defendant to carry the packages to New York and deliver them according to the direction, and that the Adams Express Company and its servants were the agents of defendant to complete said transmission and delivery. This proof would, however, only make a prima facie case, and the defendant may rebut it by other proof.
It was competent for the defendant to contract that it was to be bound for the safe transmission of the packages over its own lines only, and if it has satisfied you by proof that it did so contract, then it cannot be held liable for the default of the Adams or any other company which undertook to complete the conveyance of the packages. I believe it is not claimed that defendant made any such contract expressly with the plaintiff, but it is insisted that such contract may be fairly implied from the form of receipt given by the defendant for money packages, and that such receipts must, from their general use by the company, have been familiar to the plaintiff. The defendant says that its receipts for money packages contained a provision in these words: “That this company is to forward the same to its agent nearest or most convenient to destination only, and then to deliver the same to other parties, they to complete the transportation, such delivery to terminate all liability of this company for such packages.”
You will first determine from the proof whether the contents of this receipt were brought home to the knowledge of plaintiff. If you find they were, then I say to you that the true construction of this provision is that the defendant undertakes to deliver packages at any point upon its own routes, or upon the routes of any other company with which it has an arrangement to receive, convey and deliver packages, for a pro rata share of the compensation paid by the shipper; but when the terminus of its own route or the route of such a connecting company is reached, and the package is to go to a point beyond, then the defendant is only bound to deliver the same to other parties to complete the transportation, and on such delivery, its liability ceases. I instruct you, that if you find from the proof that there was an understanding between the defendant and the Adams Express Company by which the latter agreed to receive from the former at the end of its route all packages for transmission over the routes of the Adams Express Company, and to deliver them according to the superscription at any point on the routes of the Adams Express Company, and received a pro rata share of the money paid the defendant for the transportation of the package, then the Adams Express Company was the agent of the defendant, referred to in the language of the receipt, and if the Adams Express Company had an agency or office in New York, it would have been the duty of this defendant under that receipt to carry the package to New York, either by itself, or its agent the Adams Express Company, and then deliver it according to its superscription. You are not, however, to confine your consideration upon this point to the terms of this receipt exclusively. You may examine tbe way bills and other blank forms of the defendant to ascertain what its contract was, and you may take into consideration any statements you may find to have been made to plaintiff by the superintendent or other agent of the defendant, in reference to the transmission of these or other packages, or any special contract or understanding made by defendant’s agent with plaintiff.
If you shall find under these instructions that the defendant only contracted to carry the packages of the plaintiff over its own routes, and then to deliver them to another company for transmission to its destination, and that it has performed this contract, then that is an end of the case against the defendant, so far as its liability as a common carrier is concerned. If, however, you find that the defendant undertook to convey the packages to New York, and then deliver them to the persons to whom they were addressed, you will then proceed to consider another branch of the defense. This is, that the rule of the defendant was that packages containing money should be sealed in a certain way; that the amount of the contents should be indorsed upon the package, and a certain rate of compensation for carriage, in proportion to the amount of money conveyed, should be paid; that the plaintiff, well knowing this rule, placed the money which he alleges was lost in an envelop not sealed according to the rules, nor containing a statement indorsed upon the envelop of the amount of the contents, and that he only paid the rate charged by the defendant for the transmission of an ordinary letter containing no inclosure of value, and that by reason of this default on the part of the plaintiff, the packages were entrusted to an agent of the Adams Express Company in New York, who was only employed to deliver ordinary letters, and not valuable packages, and were thereby lost.
Upon this branch of the defense, I instruct you, that the rules of the company, in order to have any influence upon the decision of the case, must have been known to the plaintiff, and these rules must have been settled and uniform. If these rules were not by the proof brought home to the notice of the plaintiff, or if the defendant was in the habit of departing from them, and allowing exceptions to be made to them, and these facts were known to plaintiff, or if there was any understanding *174or agreement between the plaintiff and the i agent or superintendent, that the rule was not to be enforced against the plaintiff, in either of these cases, the existence of the rules can have no effect upon the decision of this case. In short, the rule must be settled, uniform and known to plaintiff. If you find they were thus settled, uniform and known to the plaintiff, and no exception was made by the agent of defendant in his favor, exonerating him from a compliance therewith, and you find that the contents and value of the packages sent by plaintiff were improperly concealed by him from the defendant for the purpose of depriving him of a part of the compensation the defendant would otherwise have claimed for the transportation and risk, the defendant would not be liable if using the ordinary vigilance which a prudent man would exercise over his own property of the same apparent value. ! i
I instruct you further, that if by reason of the failure of the plaintiff to comply with the rules of the defendant, known to him, the defendant was ignorant of the value of the package, and in consequence thereof, was induced to entrust the package to a messenger .who was employed, only to deliver packages of no intrinsic value, and failed to place it in the hands of its messenger known to be honest and trustworthy, who was uniformly employed to deliver valuable packages, and by the dishonesty of the messenger .to whom the ■package was entrusted, it was lost; in that ■case the defendant would not be liable.
If you should find for the defendant upon these issues, it would, nevertheless, be your duty to consider that branch of the plaintiff's case which arises upon what are called the common counts. Under them the plaintiff claims that the Adams Express Company is the agent of the defendant; that the Adams Company, as such agent, has not lost the money of plaintiff, or all of it, but has it or a large part of it in its possession, or has converted it to its own use. If you find under the instructions already given you. that the Adams Express Company is the agent of the defendant, and that it has retained the money of the plaintiff in its possession, or has recovered it from any person who stole it, then you should find a verdict for the plaintiff for the amount which you may decide has come to the possession of the Adams Express Company and is retained by it, or has been converted by it to its own use, with interest from the date of demand, if you shall find a demand has been made; if not. from the commencement of this suit. For, although the plaintiff may have knowingly violated the rules of the defendant in the manner of transmitting this money, still that does not divest the plaintiff of his property in the money, nor authorize the defendant, either by itself or agent, to confiscate it. The defendant is bound to pay it over on demand with interest from the date of demand.
The jury returned a verdict for defendant.