Stevens v. Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway Co.

Headnote

Carriers — freight charges — when railroad which carries merchandise to seaport under bill of lading providing for transportation to foreign land entitled to freight charges though owing to damage from fire merchandise could not be transported further and so much as was salvaged was there sold.

Stevens v. Atchison, T. & S. F. Ry. Co., 207 App. Div. 442 , affirmed.

Appeal, by permission, from a judgment of the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court in the first judicial department, entered December 28, 1923, in favor of defendant upon the submission of a controversy under sections 546 and 547 of the Civil Practice Act. The action was to determine the ownership of certain freight money held in escrow and claimed by defendant for transporting certain cotton consigned to Japan from Texas to San Francisco. When on the pier at the latter place the cotton was so damaged by fire that the steamship company on whose vessel it was to be shipped refused to receive it on the ground that there was danger of spontaneous combustion. The defendant thereupon tendered said salvaged cotton to the owners and consignees and demanded that they accept said salvaged cotton and pay freight charges for the inland transportation thereof. The owners and consignees refused to accept same, and demanded that the salvaged cotton be transported to Kobe, Japan, as originally contracted, or delivered to them at San Francisco, Cal'., without payment of any freight charges whatsoever.