Boston & M.R.r. v. Ordway

• Court: Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts
• Writing for the Court: HOLMES, J.
• Citation: Boston & M.R.r. v. Ordway, 140 Mass. 510, 5 N.E. 627 (Mass. 1886)
• Decision Date: 09 January 1886
• Parties: BOSTON & M.R.R. v. ORDWAY and others.

140 Mass. 510

5 N.E. 627

BOSTON & M.R.R. v. ORDWAY and others.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts.

January 9, 1886

COUNSEL

W.H. Moody, for defendants in review.

S Lincoln, for plaintiff in review.

OPINION

HOLMES J.

1. Evidence that Flanders made certain admissions tending to establish the company's liability was not made competent by the fact that he was the company's freight agent without more. A freight agent cannot affect his principal by admissions merely as such. In the cases cited for the defendants in review, the admissions were statements made when delivery of the goods was applied for, (Lane v. Boston & A.R.R., 112 Mass. 455;) or where information was sought from the person designated by the general representative of the principal, (Gott v. Dinsmore, 111 Mass. 45; Green v. Boston & L.R.R., 128 Mass. 221-225;) or, in some other similar way, were raised from the rank of mere admissions to authorized acts done on behalf of the principal in furtherance of the principal's legal duty. The admissions, too, were not mere admissions of liability, but of specific facts which it was the agent's province to know. Here, even if we assume that the admissions were of specific facts, the goods had been delivered and opened before the conversation; and there is nothing to show that the freight agent had any further duties to perform, or, if he had, that he was attempting to perform them. See Robinson v. Fitchburg & W.R.R., 7 Gray, 92; Pratt v. Ogdensburg & L.C.R.R., 102 Mass. 557-565; and Grinnell v. W.U. Tel. Co., 113 Mass. 299-307.

2. The statements offered, of Furber, the general superintendent were simply statements of conclusions that he had formed in his own mind from what he had been told, by whom does not appear. These conclusions were that the injury was a piece of negligence, which the judge has found to be a fact; that, as near...