Charleston Western Carolina Railway Company v. Varnville Furniture Company

• Decision Date: 01 June 1915
• Docket Number: No. 273,273
• Citation: 237 U.S. 597,35 S.Ct. 715,59 L.Ed. 1137
• Parties: CHARLESTON & WESTERN CAROLINA RAILWAY COMPANY, Plff. in Err., v. VARNVILLE FURNITURE COMPANY
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

237 U.S. 597

35 S.Ct. 715

59 L.Ed. 1137

CHARLESTON & WESTERN CAROLINA RAILWAY COMPANY, Plff. in Err.,

v VARNVILLE FURNITURE COMPANY.

No. 273.

Argued May 12, 1915.

Decided June 1, 1915.

Mr. F. B. Grier for plaintiff in error.

[Argument of Counsel from pages 598-599 intentionally omitted] No counsel appeared for defendant in error.

Mr. Justice Holmes delivered the opinion of the court:

This is an action for $14.75, damage to furniture in transit from High Point, North Carolina, to Varnville, South Carolina, $4.60 overcharge, and $50 penalty under a South Carolina statute (Civil Code 1912, § 2573), for a failure to pay the claims within forty days. The defendant contended that the law imposing the penalty was invalid under the act to regulate commerce, especially § 20 [24 Stat. at L. 386, chap. 104], as amended by the act of June 29, 1906, chap. 3591, 34 Stat. at L. 584, 593, Comp. Stat. 1913, §§ 8563, 8592, known as the Carmack amendment. The lower courts gave judgment for the plaintiff, and the judgment was affirmed by the supreme court of the state. Atlantic Coast Line R. Co. v. Mazursky, 216 U. S. 122, 54 L. ed. 411, 30 Sup. Ct. Rep. 378, was relied upon as still sustaining the law notwithstanding the amendments of the Federal act. 98 S. C. 63, 79 S. E. 700.

The defendant (plaintiff in error) received the goods from the Southern Railway Company and delivered them in damaged condition. Where the damage was done does not appear. But by § 2572, in such cases the initial, intermediate, or terminal carrier who fails within forty days from notice to inform the notifying party when, where, and by which carrier the property was damaged is made liable for the amount of the claim and a penalty of $50, although it may escape by proof that it used due diligence and was unable to trace the property, etc. By § 2573 a similar liability is imposed on carriers for failure to pay claims for freight overcharge or damage to property while in the possession of such carriers, 'within forty days in case of shipments from without the state, after the filing of such claim,' etc. If the property never came into their possession, they are remitted to § 2572. It seems to follow from the decision in this case, that the terminal carrier is held for a loss anywhere along the line, and for the penalty, unless it proves that the property never came into its possession, etc., or succeeds in shifting the loss within the forty days allowed. Therefore the assumption of this court in Atlantic Coast Line R. Co. v. Mazursky, 216 U. S. 122, 129, 54 L. ed. 411, 416, 30 Sup. Ct. Rep. 378, that the statute only concerned property lost or damaged while in the possession of a carrier in South Carolina, no longer is correct; perhaps because of amendments in what now is § 2572.

It is true that in the opinion of the supreme court the judgment is spoken of as being for damage done to a shipment 'while in defendant's possession in this state,' and it is said that the statute limits the liability to such damage. But in view of the record this can mean no more than that there is a presumption that the carrier that fails on notice to point out some other as responsible is itself in fault. The defendant happened to be the last carrier of the line, and in many states, including South Carolina, a so-called presumption has been established at common law that property starting in good condition remained so until the latest moment when it could have been harmed. But while this seems to have made its first appearance in the guise of a true presumption of fact, it became, if it was not always, a rule of substantive law, a rule of convenience, calling on the last carrier to explain. Willett v. Southern R. Co. 66 S. C. 477, 479, 45 S. E. 93, 14 Am. Neg. Rep. 635; Moore v. New York, N. H. & H. R. Co. 173 Mass. 335, 337, 73 Am. St. Rep. 298, 53 N. E. 816. The rule is stated as a rule of policy in South Carolina, and the statute makes it still more clearly so, since, with the limits that we have stated, it applies indifferently to any carrier in the line, if within the state, according to the accident of the plaintiff's demand. The case, then, we repeat, is that a carrier in interstate commerce has been held liable for a loss not shown to have happened while the goods were in its possession or within the state, or to have been caused by it, if those facts are now in any way material, on the strength of a rule of substantive law.

The claims dealt with in Atlantic Coast Line R. Co. v. Mazursky, 216 U. S. 122, 54 L. ed. 411, 30 Sup. Ct. Rep. 378, all arose before June 29, 1906, the date of the Carmack amendment. The South Carolina law has been amended and enlarged in scope since that decision, but it is less necessary to scrutinize those changes than to consider the modifications of the United States law. As it now stands that law requires...