Caten v. Salt City Movers & Storage Co.

• Decision Date: 14 May 1945
• Docket Number: No. 251.,251.
• Citation: 149 F.2d 428
• Parties: CATEN v. SALT CITY MOVERS & STORAGE CO., Inc.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Second Circuit

149 F.2d 428 (1945)

CATEN v. SALT CITY MOVERS & STORAGE CO., Inc.

No. 251.

Circuit Court of Appeals, Second Circuit.

May 14, 1945.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

Costello, Cooney & Fearon, of Syracuse, N. Y. (M. Harold Dwyer, of Syracuse, N. Y., of counsel), for plaintiffs-appellees.

Nathan E. Zelby, of New York City, and John T. Deegan, of Syracuse, N. Y. (Julius Zizmor, of Brooklyn, N. Y., of counsel), for defendant-appellant.

Before SWAN, CHASE, and FRANK, Circuit Judges.

CHASE, Circuit Judge.

The plaintiffs arranged with the defendant to ship their household goods and some of their personal effects from Gouverneur, N. Y., to Pawtucket, R. I., on a motor van owned and operated by the defendant, a common carrier in interstate commerce by motor vehicle. The van caught fire en route when its brakes became overheated because of faulty adjustment and the shipment was totally destroyed. This suit was brought in the District Court for the Northern District of New York to recover the value of the property, federal jurisdiction under Part II of the Interstate Commerce Act, 49 U.S.C.A. § 301 et seq., being clear and undisputed.

Two causes of action were alleged. One was based on the liability of the defendant as a common carrier for the value of property which it accepted for transportation and failed to deliver as agreed, and the other was for the value of property in the possession of the defendant for carriage which was destroyed by fire through its negligence. The court instructed the jury that the defendant was liable for the actual loss sustained by the plaintiffs and submitted to the jury only the question of amount. The jury found the damages and returned a verdict on which judgment for the plaintiffs was entered and from this judgment the defendant has appealed.

In the review of a judgment on a directed verdict, conflicts in the evidence are to be resolved in favor of the appellant. Slocum v. Erie R. Co., 2 Cir., 47 F.2d 216; Kuper v. Betzer, 8 Cir., 115 F.2d 842. Accepting as true the evidence most favorable to the defendant, the jury could have found substantially as follows:

The defendant, whose main office is in Syracuse, N. Y., undertook to transport the plaintiffs' property following the receipt of a letter from Robert Caten containing a list of the goods and a request for the approximate cost of the service. The defendant replied by letter giving an estimate of the weight and of the cost figured upon that basis. Later the goods were loaded on the defendant's van at Gouverneur and taken to Syracuse to be weighed. After the weight was ascertained, Mr. Nichols, the defendant's president, told Caten by telephone that it was 4650 pounds and asked what valuation to put on the property, saying, "You are allowed thirty cents a pound under the Government bill of lading." Caten replied that he carried insurance on it to the amount of three thousand dollars. Then Nichols told him that two thousand dollars in insurance in addition to the thirty cents per pound liability would cost five dollars, making the entire charge $153.26. Caten said he wanted Nichols to procure the insurance and at once sent the defendant a check for $153.26, which was duly received.

There was no declaration of value by the shippers, other than as above, and no bill of lading or receipt was issued and delivered to the shippers, although a bill of lading was made out in which the rate was based on a valuation of thirty cents per pound. That bill was carried by the van when it started for Pawtucket and it was destroyed by the fire without having been seen by the shippers.

The issues presented are whether the defendant is liable for the full value of the goods destroyed or only for the lesser valuation on which the rate charged for transportation was based, and whether there was reversible error in the reception and exclusion of evidence.

There is no dispute about certain essential facts which in addition to those already stated are, we think, decisive on the question of the defendant's liability for full damages. It was a common carrier by motor vehicle which was expressly authorized or required by the Interstate Commerce Commission to establish and maintain rates dependent upon the value declared in writing by the shipper or agreed upon in writing as the released value of the property, and it had established and did maintain such rates at the time it accepted the plaintiffs' property for transportation. Moreover, we shall assume for the purposes of this appeal that the defendant's tariffs and schedules were duly filed with the Interstate Commerce Commission and that they showed that the rate quoted to and paid by the plaintiffs was an alternative one and was based upon a valuation to which the carrier's liability was to be limited. For the purpose of showing the facts that we have just assumed, the defendant's schedules were offered in evidence but they were excluded. If this exclusion was erroneous, see American Railway Express Co. v. Daniel, 269 U.S. 40, 46 S.Ct. 15, 70 L.Ed. 154, the error was harmless in view of our conclusion that the manner of the shippers' valuation did not fulfill the statutory condition precedent to the formation of a valid contract for limitation of the carrier's liability.

Section 20(11) of the Interstate Commerce Act, 49 U.S.C.A. § 20(11), applies to the defendant by virtue of § 219 of that statute, 49 U.S.C.A. § 319. It provides, in so far as here pertinent, as follows:

"Any common carrier * * * subject to the provisions of this chapter receiving property for transportation from a point in one State * * * to a point in another State * * * shall issue a receipt or bill of lading therefor, and shall be liable to the lawful holder thereof for any loss, damage, or injury to such property caused by it * * * and no contract, receipt, rule, regulation, or other limitation of any character whatsoever shall exempt such common carrier * * * from the liability hereby imposed; and any such common carrier * * * shall be liable to the lawful holder of said receipt or bill of lading or to any party entitled to recover thereon, whether such receipt or bill of lading has been issued or not, for the full actual loss, damage, or injury to such property caused by it * * *, notwithstanding any limitation of liability or limitation of the amount of recovery or representation or agreement as to value in any such receipt or bill of lading, or in any contract, rule, regulation, or in any tariff filed with the Interstate Commerce Commission; and any such limitation, without respect to the manner or form in which it is sought to be made is hereby declared to be unlawful and void: * * * Provided, however, That the provisions hereof respecting liability for full actual loss, damage, or injury, notwithstanding any limitation of liability or recovery or representation or agreement or release as to value, and declaring any such limitation to be unlawful and void, shall not apply * * * to property * * * received for transportation concerning which the carrier shall have been or shall be expressly authorized or required by order of the Interstate Commerce Commission to establish and maintain rates dependent upon the value declared in writing by the shipper or agreed upon in writing as the released value of the property, in which case such declaration or agreement shall have no other effect than to limit liability and recovery to an amount not exceeding the value so declared or released, and shall not, so far as relates to values, be held to be a violation of section 10 of this chapter; and any tariff schedule which may be filed with the commission pursuant to such order shall contain specific reference thereto and may establish rates varying with the value so declared and agreed upon."

After passage of the Carmack Amendment in 1906, 34 Stat. 593, both interstate carriers and shippers were chargeable with knowledge of the content of the schedules filed with the Interstate Commerce Commission and were conclusively presumed to have contracted according to them in respect to rates and liability unless there was proof of rebating or...