Beard & Sons v. The Illinois Central Railway Company
| Citation | 44 N.W. 800,79 Iowa 518 |
| Parties | BEARD & SONS v. THE ILLINOIS CENTRAL RAILWAY COMPANY |
| Decision Date | 10 February 1890 |
| Court | United States State Supreme Court of Iowa |
Decided January, 1890.
Appeal from Cedar Rapids Superior Court.--HON. JOHN T. STONEMAN Judge.
ACTION to recover damages for injury sustained by plaintiffs from the negligence of defendant in transporting a carload of butter, which it had received from an intermediate carrier whereby the butter was greatly injured. There was a verdict and judgment for plaintiff. Defendant appeals.
AFFIRMED.
Mills & Keeler and W. J. Knight, for appellant.
Rickel & Crocker, for appellees.
I.
The plaintiff delivered to the Burlington, Cedar Rapids and Northern Railway Company, at West Union, in two consignments, a large quantity of butter for transportation to New Orleans. The facts as to both separate consignments are identical. In the further statement of facts they will be referred to as but one transaction. The butter was put in refrigerator cars by the company first receiving it and was transported therein over connecting roads to St. Louis, where it was transferred by drays across the river, and delivered to the St. Louis, Alton and Terre Haute Railway Company, known as the "Cairo Short Line," and put in a common box car, and a lined fruit car, each of which was sealed, as is usually done, and sent on the same day to Duquoin, Illinois, and delivered to defendant, which transported it to New Orleans, in the same cars. The butter was not examined by defendant, and no attempt was made to ascertain its condition, on the probability that it could or would not be transported in the cars, without injury, to New Orleans. The Cairo Short Line Company billed the butter to New Orleans at a rate of freight charges for common cars. It appears that the consignment took the usual course of transaction between defendant and the Cairo Short Line, at Duquoin. It is not shown that plaintiff, or the initial or connecting carrier, made any demand of defendant or the Cairo Short Line Company for a refrigerator car, or for the protection of the butter from the effects of heat by the use of ice in the common car in which it was transported, and it is not shown that plaintiff, or the initial carrier, or the connecting companies to St. Louis, had any notice or information in any way, directly or indirectly, of the shipment of the butter without protection from the effects of the heat, nor did they have any notice or information of the practice and course of business adopted by defendant and the Cairo Short Line at Duquoin. We are required to determine whether, under the law upon these facts, the defendant is liable. The discussion of this question will dispose of certain objections made by the counsel of defendant to the rulings of the court below upon instructions and admissions of evidence.
II. We will proceed to inquire as to the duty of defendant upon receiving the butter in a car from the Cairo Short Line for transportation to New Orleans, without directions or instructions as to the character of the car in which it should be carried. A carrier's duty is not limited to the transportation of goods delivered for carriage. He must exercise such diligence as is required by law to protect the goods from destruction and injury resulting from conditions which, in the exercise of due care, may be averted or counteracted. He must guard the goods from destruction or injury by the elements; from the effects of delays; indeed, from every source of injury which he may avert, and which, in the exercise of care and ordinary intelligence, may be known or anticipated. Unknown causes, or those which are inherent in the nature of the goods, and cannot be, in the exercise of diligence, averted, will not render the carrier liable. The nature of the goods must be considered in determining the carrier's duty. Some metals may be transported in open cars. Many articles of commerce, when transported, must be protected from rain, sunshine and heat, and must have cars fitted for their safe transportation. Live animals must have food and water, when the distance of transportation demands it. Fruit, and some other perishable articles, must be carried with expedition and protection from frost. So the carrier must attend to the character of the goods he transports. He is informed thereof by inspection of the freight-bills, or by other papers accompanying the shipment.
In the case before us the marks on the packages and the way-bill disclosed that the subject of shipment was butter. The employes of defendant were endowed with intelligence which taught them that the season was summer, when warm weather prevailed; that butter, in common cars, would be greatly injured by the ordinary heat of the climate; and that the butter, as it approached its destination, would be subject, by reason of the change of latitude, to greatly increased heat from the weather. All these things are familiarly known to all men. Surely, the law will presume that defendant's employes had full knowledge thereof. The law required the defendant, having received the perishable cargo involved in this suit, to exercise the care and diligence necessary to protect it; and, if improved cars for the transportation of articles of commerce liable to injury from heat were in use, it was defendant's duty to use such cars in carrying the butter. These views are supported by the following, among other, cases: Hewett v. Railway Co., 63 Iowa 611; Sager v. Railway Co., 31 Me. 228; Hawkins v. Railway Co., 17 Mich. 57, 18 Mich. 427; Railway Co. v. Pratt, 22 Wall. 123; Wing v. Railway Co., 1 Hilt. 241; Merchants' Dispatch & Trans. Co. v. Cornforth, 3 Colo. 280. As to the duty of defendant to use cars so constructed and used as to avoid injury from heat, see Hutch. Carr., sec. 294; Boscowitz v. Express Co., 93 Ill. 523; Steinweg v. Railway Co., 43 N.Y. 123.
III. But it is said: (1) That defendant did not have refrigerator cars which it could have used on the day it received the butter; (2) that the cars were sealed; (3) that it was accustomed to haul the cars received from the Cairo Short Line without changing the cargo. We may here...
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