Central of Georgia Ry. Co. v. Chicago Varnish Co.

• Decision Date: 24 November 1910
• Citation: 53 So. 832,169 Ala. 287
• Parties: CENTRAL OF GEORGIA RY. CO. v. CHICAGO VARNISH CO.
• Court: Alabama Supreme Court

53 So. 832

169 Ala. 287

CENTRAL OF GEORGIA RY. CO. v. CHICAGO VARNISH CO.

Supreme Court of Alabama

November 24, 1910

Appeal from Circuit Court, Geneva County; H. A. Pearce, Judge.

Action by the Chicago Varnish Company against the Central of Georgia Railway Company. From a judgment for plaintiff, defendant appeals. Affirmed.

R. D Crawford, for appellant.

C. D Carmichael, for appellee.

SAYRE J.

This suit was for a failure to deliver 448 gallons of turpentine spirits. The complaint is in code form, and is ex contractu. The spirits had been consigned by the Jackson Lumber Company to the plaintiff company in Chicago in 1905. When the tank car in which the shipment was made arrived at its destination, it was found that a part of its original contents (according to plaintiff's contention) had disappeared. Plaintiff insisted that the shortage resulted from a leak in the tank. Pleas 7 and 8 put forward the defense that the spirits had been shipped in a car belonging to and furnished by the consignor and delivered to the defendant for use in the transportation of its turpentine and that the loss occurred by reason of a defect in the tank at the time of delivery, and without negligence on the part of defendant. To this plaintiff replied, to state the substance of its special replication, that at and prior to the date of the shipment the defendant had a lease of the car from the consignor under an agreement by which the consignor was to furnish defendant with cars for the shipment of consignor's turpentine, defendant paying rent for the use of same, and keeping them in repair at the consignor's cost, and that the car in question had been furnished and used for the shipment of the turpentine under said agreement. Demurrer to this replication was overruled, and that ruling is assigned for error. It is the duty of the carrier to provide safe and suitable vehicles for the carriage of goods. He cannot avoid this responsibility by using the cars of another--this upon the theory that in such case the person furnishing the cars becomes the agent of the carrier. But, where the consignor undertakes to furnish cars, it cannot in reason be that the carrier is responsible for a loss which arises out of the condition of the cars alone; and pleas 7 and 8 stated a case which, in facie, called for the application of this principle. The replication, however, added a material element to the case so stated, by showing that, notwithstanding the shipper furnished the car, the ordinary rule of responsibility obtained between the parties, because the duty in respect to the condition of the car was left by the contract under which it was furnished where the law would have put it if the car had been furnished by defendant. The demurrer was properly ruled.

The shipment was to pass, and the car containing it did pass over the lines of several connecting carriers. The bill of lading contained the usual stipulation exempting the initial carrier from liability for loss or damage occurring beyond its own terminal. Defendant's engagement, therefore, was to safely carry the goods to its own terminal and there put them in due course of shipment over the line of the proximate connecting carrier. As the law then was--and by the law of that time the rights of the parties here are to be determined--each carrier was responsible only for the loss or injury occurring on its own line. Jones v. C. S. & M. R. R. Co., 89 Ala. 376, 8 So. 61; McNeill v. Atlantic Coast Line, 161 Ala. 319, 49 So. 797. Federal and state statutes, passed since the date of the contract in litigation, have made such stipulations void, and hold the initial carrier responsible for any loss, damage, or injury caused by the receiving carrier or by any...