Polack v. O'Brien

The learned trial court held that the property was lost by reason of the defendant’s negligence. This conclusion was based on the assumption that Clum’s Express was the agent of the defendant, and hence that the defendant was liable for the negligence of its agent or servant. The relationship, however, of principal and agent, between the defendant and Clum’s Express, cannot be predicated on the facts which have been made to appear. Clum’s Express is conceded to have been a common carrier. The evidence shows that it delivered much merchandise for different parties to the steamboat company. This was a matter of daily occurrence. A few months prior to the transaction in question the defendant had received from the plaintiffs other bristle under a precisely similar contract. On that occasion the property was transported by the plaintiffs to the defendant through the medium of the Citizens’ Steamboat Company and Clum’s Express; the property having been taken by the express from the steamboat dock in Troy to the defendant at his place- of business. Such property likewise was returned by the defendant to the plaintiffs through the medium of the same common carriers. On the occasion in question the property was received by the defendant in the same manner; the defendant advancing for the plaintiffs to the express its transportation charges. On neither occasion does it appear that Clum’s Express in conveying the property from the steamboat dock to the defendant’s place of business was acting under his directions; nor does it appear that it had general directions from him to deliver property intended for him. When the defendant delivered the property to Clum’s Express for return to tire plaintiffs, he merely adopted the same agencies and instrumentalities for effecting such return as the plaintiffs themselves adopted in transporting to him the property. The case is entirely destitute of evidence showing that said express stood in any other relation to the defendant than did the steamboat company; and it is impossible to see how, under the circumstances, the defendant’s liability to the plaintiffs is any different than it would be if the property had been lost by the steamboat company, instead of by Clum’s Express. It is even more difficult to infer that the express was the agent of defendant than it would be to infer that it was the agent of plaintiffs, inasmuch as it- was first selected by the plaintiffs as their carrier in delivering the property on both occasions to the defendant, and it is a reasonable inference from all of the evidence that its charges in both directions on both occasions were to be paid by plaintiffs.

Plaintiffs call attention to a letter which the defendant wrote them when he delivered the property to Clum’s Express, in which letter he stated that he had shipped such property by “the Troy boat.” The purpose of this letter was to apprise the plaintiffs when and where in New York they might expect their property. It does not appear that it misled the plaintiffs, or placed them at any disadvantage in reference to the property. It does not estop the defendant from claiming that Clum’s Express was not his agent, nor, under the circumstances of this case, does it tend to establish such agency. The plaintiffs, as bailors, had the burden of proof to show negligence on the part of the

It may, perhaps, be inferred from the evidence that it was a part of the contract obligation assumed by the defendant to redeliver the property to the plaintiffs; but it cannot be inferred that such redelivery was to be made at the plaintiffs’ place of business in the city of New York, or even at the steamboat dock in the city of Troy. One of the plaintiffs testified:

“There wasn’t any understanding in relation to that at all; nothing said whatever by me as to how they were to be shipped, or by what line they were to be shipped. The only transaction in relation to bleaching the bristle or finishing it for us was through letters merely notifying him of our shipment to him of certain bristles that we would like to have him finish.”

When the defendant redelivered the property to the same common carrier which the plaintiffs had adopted in making the delivery to the defendant, the latter had fulfilled his contract obligation, and his liability in respect to the property terminated. He did not disregard any instructions given by the plaintiffs. Nor did he assume to act on his own responsibility in selecting a method of reconveying the property to the plaintiffs. He used the same instrumentalities which the plaintiffs had used for the purposes of transportation. He selected their common carriers. On another trial a different state of facts may be developed. But on the evidence before us we can discover no negligence, or disregard of duty, or breach of contract.

The judgment must be reversed on the law and the facts, and a new trial granted, with costs to the appellant to abide the event.

CHESTER and KELLOGG, JJ., concur.

SMITH, J. I concur in the reversal of this judgment upon the ground that the defendant’s liability must rest upon negligence which has not been proven. His contract to redeliver the goods was not absolute, but was to use reasonable diligence to safely redeliver. The evidence is not as complete as might be wished, though I think it sufficiently appears that Clum’s Express was a common carrier which was generally engaged and trusted for the delivery of goods between Troy and Lansingburgh. A delivery, therefore, to Clum’s Express, should be deemed an act of reasonable diligence as a step in the redelivery to plaintiff of his goods. It does not appear that this express was in any discredit, or that there was any fact which would lead the defendant to distrust this agency. Recognizing that a failure to redeliver by bailee