Edsall v. Camden & Amboy Railroad & Transportation Co.

Headnote

No presumptions will be indulged in, in favor of exemptions from common law liability.

While it is competent for common carriers to provide by contract for such exemptions, it must be done in clear and unambiguous terms, and the rule that the language of contracts if ambiguous is to be construed against the party using it should be rigidly applied to such contracts.

This action was brought to recover for a quantity of wool destroyed by fire while on the defendant’s pier in New York. The wool was shipped at Fort Wayne, Indiana, by the Pittsburgh and Chicago Railway Company. By the bill of lading that company agreed to transport the wool to its station at Pittsburgh (the company to be exempted from loss by fire), and to deliver it to the connecting carrier, where its responsibility as common carrier should cease. The company guaranteed that the through rate should not be over $1.33 per 100 pounds. It carried the property to Pittsburgh and there delivered the same to the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, which company delivered it to defendant, who carried it to New York. Judgment below was ordered for plaintiffs. The General Term reversed the judgment and ordered a new trial.

It is decided here upon authority of Ætna Ins. Co. v. Wheeler ( 49 N. Y., 616 ) and Babcock v. L. S. and M. S. R. R. Co. (49 id., 491). The opinion also lays down the general proposition stated above.