Cothren v. Kansas City Laundry Service Co.

• Decision Date: 12 June 1922
• Docket Number: No. 14415.,14415.
• Parties: COTHREN v. KANSAS CITY LAUNDRY SERVICE CO.
• Court: Missouri Court of Appeals

242 S.W. 167

COTHREN v. KANSAS CITY LAUNDRY SERVICE CO.

No. 14415.

Kansas City Court of Appeals. Missouri.

June 12, 1922.

Appeal from Circuit Court, Jackson County; Allen C. Southern, Judge.

"Not to be officially published."

Action by Cora Cothren against the Kansas City Laundry Service Company. From a judgment for plaintiff in a justice court, and on appeal, in a circuit court, defendant appeals. Affirmed.

Stubbs & Stubbs, of Kansas City, for appellant.

C. R. Leslie, of Kansas City, for respondent.

TRIMBLE, P. J.

Plaintiff brought this action before a justice of the peace to recover the value of a quantity of hotel laundry delivered to the defendant for the purpose of being laundered and returned to her, but which the defendant lost in some way, and therefore failed to redeliver, and also refused to pay for same. She recovered judgment in both the justice and circuit courts, and thereupon the defendant took this appeal.

The evidence in plaintiff's behalf tends to show that some time in the fore part of August, 1919, she sent to defendant's laundry a large bundle, consisting of an itemized and listed number of various articles of "hotel wash," such as sheets, towels, spreads, aprons, tablecloths, etc. The fact that the bundle was sent, was received at the laundry, that it was lost, and that there was a consequent failure to return it laundered is all conceded. The case presented, therefore, is one wherein there was a bailment of the articles, and the defendant was a bailee for hire. The bailment, the loss thereof in some unexplained way, and the failure to return the property to the bailor, being admitted, made a case of liability. Freeman v. Foreman, 141 Mo. App. 359, 125 S. W. 524; Levi v. Missouri, etc., R. Co., 157 Mo. App. 536, 138 S. W. 699.; Berger v. St. Louis, etc., Cora. Co., 136 Mo. App. 36, 40, 116 S. W. 444; Collier v. Langan, etc., Moving Co., 147 Mo. App. 700, 127 S. W. 435. No attempt whatever was made to excuse or justify the failure to return.

It is urged that reversible error was committed in allowing plaintiff to testify to what the various articles cost her when bought new. Of course what they cost when bought is not evidence of their value when lost, and the measure of damages is their value at the latter time. In this case, however, the plaintiff testified as to their value at the time of the loss, and the case was submitted on that measure of damages. The fact that the articles were bought in May or June before the bailment (except two tablecloths she had had a year and the towels which she got in January), that some of them had been laundered but a few times, and some of them not at all, and all were in good condition at the time of the bailment, shows that their cost, not being too remote, was a circumstance throwing light upon the correctness of the value placed on them by plaintiff at the time of the loss, which was considerably less than the cost price she gave, nearly 50 per cent. less in the case of the two tablecloths. If there had been no testimony as to the value of the goods at the time of their loss, doubtless the admission of their cost when new would have been error. But such is not this case, and under the circumstances herein we cannot say it was reversible error.

The contention that plaintiff was not shown to be qualified to testify to the...