Blumantle v. Fitchburg R. Co.

• Decision Date: 02 September 1879
• Citation: 127 Mass. 322
• Parties: Mark Blumantle v. Fitchburg Railroad Company
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

127 Mass. 322

Mark Blumantle v. Fitchburg Railroad Company

Supreme Court of Massachusetts

September 2, 1879

Argued March 7, 1878

Suffolk. Contract with a count in tort, against the defendant as a common carrier, for the value of a package of merchandise, not personal baggage, entrusted by the plaintiff, a peddler, to the defendant, to be transported over the defendant's railroad from Boston to Maynard.

At the trial in the Superior Court, before Colburn, J., the plaintiff offered evidence tending to show that, on May 17 1875, in the forenoon, he purchased a passenger ticket of the defendant in Boston for Maynard; that he delivered to the defendant's baggage-master two bundles or packages requesting that the same might be checked for Maynard; that the baggage-master asked for and was shown the passenger ticket, and then checked the packages and gave the plaintiff two corresponding checks; that the plaintiff then entered the passenger train and arrived at Maynard the same forenoon; that, upon his arrival there, desiring then to take only one of the packages, he delivered one of the checks to the station agent, received one package and went away, giving no attention to the other package, and not knowing whether it had arrived; that, one or two days afterwards, he went to the station agent at Maynard, presented his remaining check, and demanded the other package, and was informed by the agent that the package was not there and that he knew nothing about it; and that the plaintiff had never obtained said package, or learned anything further concerning it.

The plaintiff admitted that nothing was said to the defendant as to the character of the package; but, for the purpose of showing that the baggage-master, when receiving and checking the same, knew as to its contents, the plaintiff offered evidence tending to show that, from the manner of tying up the bundle, some of its contents were visible; that it appeared to be a peddler's package; and that the baggage-master then said to him, "You will make lots of money, there are lots of peddlers." The plaintiff also read to the jury certain interrogatories and answers thereto by the defendant's superintendent, who testified, that checks were used solely for personal baggage, and never intentionally for freight; and that the defendant had promulgated, in and since April 1873, a printed notice to the effect that no person in its service was authorized to take or send by passenger train any goods except personal baggage, and that any merchandise taken by such train was at the owner's risk. The plaintiff testified that he never knew or heard of such notice; and there was evidence tending to show that several peddlers, having bundles similar to that which the plaintiff claimed to have lost, went to Maynard on the same train with the plaintiff.

The defendant requested the judge to rule that, even if the defendant's servants, who received and checked the plaintiff's packages, knew that they contained merchandise, and not personal baggage, the defendant would only be liable as a gratuitous bailee. But the judge refused so to rule; and instructed the jury that, if the plaintiff was ignorant of the rules and regulations of the defendant, in relation to baggage, and delivered the lost bundle to the defendant's baggage-master to be checked as personal baggage was usually checked, and the baggage-master, knowing it was not personal baggage, received it and checked it as such, the defendant was liable for its loss, to the same extent as if it had been personal baggage; that if the defendant did not deliver the bundle at Maynard, or if it delivered it there and suffered it to be taken away without the plaintiff's authority immediately upon its arrival there, so that the plaintiff lost it, he was entitled to recover its value; and that if the plaintiff knew the rules and regulations of the defendant, or if the baggage-master supposed the bundle to be personal baggage, the defendant was not liable for its loss.

The jury returned a verdict for the plaintiff; and the defendant alleged exceptions.

Exceptions sustained.

W. S. Stearns, for the defendant.

J. E. Butler, for the plaintiff.

Gray C. J. Colt & Soule, JJ., absent.

OPINION

Gray C. J.

The ordinary contract made by a railroad corporation with a passenger, by the sale and purchase of a passenger ticket, is for the transportation of the passenger and of his reasonable personal baggage; and the corporation is liable as a common...