The Am. Express Co. v. Baldwin
| Decision Date | 30 April 1861 |
| Citation | 26 Ill. 504,1861 WL 4191,79 Am.Dec. 389,16 Peck 504 |
| Parties | THE AMERICAN EXPRESS COMPANY, Appellant,v.HEMAN BALDWIN, Appellee. |
| Court | Illinois Supreme Court |
26 Ill. 504
1861 WL 4191 (Ill.)
79 Am.Dec. 389
16 Peck (IL) 504
THE AMERICAN EXPRESS COMPANY, Appellant,
v.
HEMAN BALDWIN, Appellee.
Supreme Court of Illinois.
April Term, 1861.
1. An express company will be liable for loss, where it appears that its agent locked money intrusted to it in a safe, but took so little and such bad care of the keys that a burglar had easy access to them and stole the keys and money.
2. If it appears that express companies do deliver packages before entry on the delivery book, nevertheless there must be an actual delivery, or an offer to deliver, before they can be released from liability as common carriers.
THE facts are generally stated in the case as formerly reported in volume 23, page 197.
The following facts were shown on the second trial by the agent of the company:
After the messenger arrived that day, I checked in his run by comparing his packages with the waybills, to see if they were correct. After checking in the run, packages that I knew could be delivered were entered on the delivery book. This package to Baldwin was not so entered. I put the package back into the safe. After delivering all the packages he could, the delivering agent came back to the office and I settled with him. The last thing I did in the office that day was to make out waybills for o??nt freight to go by the train at 6 1/2 o'clock the next morning; then went home; was satisfied the safe was locked when I left it; also the office.
After getting my tea, I had occasion to go up town, and called at express office; I unlocked the door and locked it again, and put the key in my coat pocket; it was a large cumbersome key; when I locked the safe I put the key in my pantaloons pocket. Went to the bakery and the market and then home, and soon went to bed. Always hung my coat at the bedroom door in the dining room; my pants and other clothes on the bedpost at the foot of the bed; did not take the keys out of my clothes when I retired. The dining room was in the rear part of the house, next to an alley on the side of the house, and a door opened out of dining room into alley; side of main part of house was on the alley; was a wing back of main part of house, in which was a kitchen; between
[26 Ill. 505]
side of kitchen and line of alley was a space of six or eight feet; there were two windows in dining room; one opened into the alley, the other into space between alley and kitchen; under back window of dining room was a sloping, outside cellar...To continue reading
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