Hunt v. Michigan Southern & Northern Indiana Railroad

Majority

p. 189

Hunt v. Michigan Southern and Northern Indiana Railroad Company.^[1]

Headnote

Receipt of intermediate carrier.

The receipt of an intermediate carrier, given without examination, describing the property as in good order, is no evidence of its then condition, as against the shipper.

Appeal from the general term of the Court of Common Pleas for the city and county of New York, where a judgment of the Marine Court, in favor of the plaintiff, had been affirmed.

This was an action by Franklin W. Hunt against the Michigan Southern and Northern Indiana Railroad Company, for injury to the plaintiff’s medical library, which had been delivered to the defendants for transportation, alleged to have been damaged through their negligence.

The books were received by the defendants, properly-boxed, and in perfect order, at Rolling Prairie, in Indiana, on the 5th April 1854. In their receipt of that date, they stated that they were to forward them to the plaintiff at Bergen, New Jersey, without further liability, after railroad or lake shipment, or loss by fire.

The plaintiff, who was a physician residing in New York, after his return, went to Bergen, from time to time, for the property, but could get no account of it. At length, some three weeks after the delivery, to the defendants, he found the boxes at Jersey City, in the depot of the New York and Erie Railroad Company.

p. 190

They were dry and in apparent good order. He paid the freight, and took them home; but, on opening the boxes, he found that the contents had been wet, that the books had been soaked through, and that the injury had occurred so long before, that the bed-clothes, boxed with the books were all mildewed. The property was damaged to the extent of $150.

The defendants gave no evidence to exonerate themselves from the imputation of negligence on their own road, nor to explain what was done with the boxes, during the three days which intervened between their shipment at Rolling Prairie, and their delivery to the next carrier at Toledo. They, however, introduced the receipt of the Cleveland and Toledo Railroad Company, dated the 8th of April, covering a large *amount of property, in which this was included, describing the whole as in good order and condition. It did not appear, however, that the goods were examined at all, nor that they were in good order, in fact.

The marine court, upon these facts, held, that the damage was due to the defendants’ negligence; and the judgment was affirmed by the court of common pleas, whereupon, the defendants took this appeal.

Tracy, for the appellants.

Niles, for the respondent.

There is nothing in the evidence to justify the claim that the property was injured, after it passed from the custody of the defendants. The mildewed condition of the blankets indicated that the goods were'drenched, at an early stage in their transportation - if the fact were otherwise, the appellants had

p. 191

the means of proving it. They furnished no explanation of the detention of the property, for three days, on the way from Rolling Prairie to Toledo, and it is fair to infer, that the injury occurred within that period.

This inference is noc repelled, by the circumstance that they procured a third party to sign a receipt, without examination, describing the packages as in good order, on their reshipment at Toledo. This simply confirms the evidence of the plaintiff, that there was nothing in the exterior appearance of the boxes, to indicate the damaged condition of the contents. The question was one of fact. No error of law was committed on the trial, and the court, below was right in affirming the judgment.

Judgment affirmed.