Heiman v. W. Union Tel. Co.

• Decision Date: 31 May 1883
• Citation: 16 N.W. 32,57 Wis. 562
• Parties: HEIMAN AND OTHERS v. WESTERN UNION TEL. CO.
• Court: Wisconsin Supreme Court

57 Wis. 562

16 N.W. 32

HEIMAN AND OTHERS

v.WESTERN UNION TEL. CO.

Supreme Court of Wisconsin.

Filed May 31, 1883.

Appeal from county court, Milwaukee county.Frank B. Van Valkenburgh, for appellants, Marcus Heiman and others.

Finches, Lynde & Miller, for respondent, the Western Union Tel. Co.

ORTON, J.

The main question in this case, and on which, more than all others, the verdict was directed, was whether the plaintiffs were bound by the condition in the printed rules and regulations of the defendant company, which, if accompanying the original message to be sent, or known by the plaintiff to exist in respect to such message, became the contract between the parties “that no claim for damages shall be valid unless presented in writing within twenty days from sending the message.” The testimony of the plaintiffs themselves was that for many years they had used the blanks of the company containing these rules in respect to night messages, and one of the plaintiffs wrote in pencil the address of the message in question, together with the date, upon one of the blanks. That the plaintiffs were bound by these rules as the contract between the parties in respect to this message, in view of the evidence, is too clear for argument or question. The message was sent in the night of the seventh day of May and was received promptly at the company's office in New York, and immediately sent by messenger to the St. Nicholas Hotel, the place of the address, where one of the plaintiffs was stopping at the time, and was not handed to him, only because there was an error in the name of Heiman by the use of a letter “r” therein instead of “i,” which made the name “Herman.” The dispatch, however, was handed to the proper person on the fourteenth day of May. This delay, it is alleged, occasioned the plaintiffs' damages. No claim for such damages was presented to the company in writing or otherwise until the thirty-first day of May following,--more than 20 days from sending the message on the seventh day of May. There is no chance for construction in the meaning of the word “sending.” It was sent only once as a telegraph message, and that was on the night of the 7th. It is contended that the delay in receiving the message, occasioned by the mistake or error of the company, should modify this condition and extend the time. I know of no such rule of law where a reasonable time is still left, after knowledge of the mistake, to give such notice. This principle is recognized in respect to limitation laws, as well as limitations of time in contracts, in cases too numerous to be cited. What the rule might be where the whole time had elapsed before knowledge of the mistake or neglect we need not consider. Here there was time enough left for such notice in the time between the fourteenth and the twenty-seventh of May. It is further contended that this condition is unreasonable and void on grounds of public policy. There can be no test as to whether this length of time is reasonable or not, except the possibility of giving the notice within such time under ordinary circumstances, without unreasonable expedition or haste. By that criterion 20 days' time is as reasonable as 30, 60, or 90. The time beyond that...