Gardiner v. New York Cent. & H.R.R. Co.

• Decision Date: 04 April 1911
• Citation: 201 N.Y. 387,94 N.E. 876
• Court: New York Court of Appeals Court of Appeals
• Parties: GARDINER v. NEW YORK CENT. & H. R. R. CO.

201 N.Y. 387

94 N.E. 876

GARDINER

v.NEW YORK CENT. & H. R. R. CO.

Court of Appeals of New York.

April 4, 1911.

Appeal from Supreme Court, Appellate Division, First Department.

Action by Edith V. Gardiner against the New York Central & Hudson River Railroad Company. From a judgment of the Appellate Division (139 App. Div. 17,123 N. Y. Supp. 865) affirming a judgment overruling a demurrer to a partial defense, plaintiff appeals by permission on certified questions. Affirmed and questions answered in the affirmative.

See, also, 140 App. Div. 907,125 N. Y. Supp. 1121.

This is an appeal by permission on certified questions from an order and judgment (139 App. Div. 17,123 N. Y. Supp. 865) of the First Appellate Division affirming an interlocutory judgment of the Supreme Court overruling plaintiff's demurrer to the partial defense contained in defendant's answer. The action was brought to recover several hundred dollars as the alleged value of certain baggage received and checked by defendant for plaintiff and claimed to have been lost through the negligence of the former. The substance of the partial defense which has been demurred to is as follows:

The plaintiff as passenger was riding and her baggage was checked on and under a special form of ticket known as a ‘50-trip family ticket,’ which was issued at reduced rates in conformity with the provisions of defendant's tariff filed with the Public Service Commission as provided and required by law. Said ticket contained the following conditions: ‘Conditions. In consideration of the reduced fare at which this ticket is sold, the purchaser agrees that its use shall be subject to the following conditions: * * * (3) That this company's liability for baggage belonging to each passenger shall not exceed fifty dollars ($50).’ That plaintiff knew of and assented to the conditions contained in said ticket and thus became bound thereby and limited in her claim to said sum of $50. The tariff filed and under which said ticket was issued as aforesaid, in addition to a schedule showing the reduced rates at which tickets of that class were sold, contained, amongst others, the following provisions:

‘(10) Baggage. (a) Wearing apparel only will be checked as baggage on tickets at fares named herein, and for such baggage belonging to one passenger this company will not accept a greater liability than $50.00. The weight of baggage which will be carried fred is explained in the following paragraph:

‘(11) Excess Baggage.-Baggage in excess of free allowance will be charged for in accordance with excess baggage rates as shown in Baggage Tariff,’ etc.Joseph Larocque, for appellant.

William Mann, for respondent.

HISCOCK, J. (after stating the facts as above).

Appellant alleges that her baggage checked by respondent under a special form of ticket issued at reduced rates was lost through the carrier's own neglect, and the criticism made of the latter's partial defense setting up a clause in said ticket limiting its liability to a specified amount is that such clause does not expressly excuse the respondent's own negligence as bailee, and therefore is not a defense in this case where such neglect is relied on.

The question thus raised under the circumstances of this case will be a narrow one. Its determination will be controlled by the interpretation and meaning which we shall give to the limitation clause above quoted and will not involve any uncertain groping for general principles which are to govern its effect after such interpretation has fixed its proper meaning.

[1][2] Counsel for the appellant is entirely right in his claim that a clause simply releasing a carrier from liability for loss of goods will not include a case of its own negligence unless such exemption is expressly and plainly stated. He concedes also correctly that a clause in consideration of reduced rates properly and reasonably limiting the liability of a carrier to a specified valuation of the goods received by it will include a case of a loss or damage arising from its own negligence without express mention thereof. There can be no doubt about this proposition since our recent decision in Tewes v. North German Lloyd S. S. Company, 186 N. Y. 151, 78 N. E. 864,8 L. R. A. (N. S.) 199. He contends that the clause here involved is not sufficient within the principle first stated because it does not expressly excuse the respondent's own negligence, and in that contention I agree with him.

[3] He then finally reaches the debatable ground of the case, and insists that the provision which has been quoted is not sufficient under the principle secondly stated because it is not one of limited or fixed valuation, and therefore effective without express enumeration of such negligence. With this contention I do not agree, but think that the clause is to be construed as one relating to and fixing a valuation on appellant's baggage and limiting respondent's liability thereto in consideration of reduced rates. The choice is between an interpretation that this was a mere general clause releasing the carrier from liability without any reference to the character and value of the goods and one that it fixed the amount and value of free baggage which a passenger could check on this ticket and limited the carrier's liablility to that amount.

Of course, it was not necessary to use the specific word ‘value’ or ‘valuation’ in order to frame a clause of limited valuation and liability. If the fair meaning and purpose of the clause as understood and intended by the parties was to fix a liability based on a reduced and limited valuation of goods in consideration of reduced rates of fare, we ought to enforce this meaning, and carry out this purpose, if permissible. In determining what must have been the understanding of the parties concerning the meaning of the clause at the time when plaintiff checked her baggage under the ticket containing it, it will be well to recall some of the general statutory and other legal rules which surrounded that transaction, and with knowledge of which she must be charged. She knew that under long-extablished rules on a ticket at full rates she could compel the respondent to transport all of the property which she might properly check as baggage at its full value. She also must be charged with knowledge of the statute, section 38 of the public service commissions law (Laws 1907, c. 429), which provided, in absence of special contract: ‘Every common carrier and railroad corporation shall be liable for loss, damage and injury to property carried as baggage up to the full value and regardless of the character thereof, but the value in excess of one hundred and fifty dollars shall be stated upon delivery to the carrier’; and also with knowledge of the provisions of said act (section 33) ‘that nothing in this act shall prevent the issuance of mileage * * * or commutation passenger tickets, * * * with special privileges as to the amount of free baggage that may be carried under mileage tickets of one thousand miles or more,’ and requiring (section 28) every common carrier to file and give public notice of ‘schedules showing the rates, fares and charges for the transportation of passengers and property’; also with knowledge of the schedule heretofore quoted filed by respondent with the public service commission, providing, in case of such a ticket as she was using, ‘Wearing apparel only will be checked as baggage on tickets at fares named herein, and for such baggage belonging to one passenger this company will not accept a greater liability than $50.00.’

With these statutes and principles presumably in her mind, and telling her that, independent of statute, she had a right under an unlimited ticket to enforce upon the respondent a liability for the full value of anything properly constituting baggage, and that under the statute she had a right on proper terms to enforce upon it a liability of full valuation of anything which she might desire to have transported as baggage ‘regardless of the character thereof,’ plaintiff preferred to secure a better rate of transportation and check her baggage under a tariff schedule and ticket which limited her as to the character of baggage and as to the amount for which liability would arise. She must necessarily have understood, as it seems to me, that, although she could hold the respondent for the full value of anything she wanted to check as baggage, she was consenting to a restriction of the character and on the value of what she might check; that when the tariff schedule explained that ‘wearing apparel only will be checked as baggage * * * and for such baggage this company will not accept a greater liability than $50.00,’ and her ticket said the company's ‘liability for baggage shall not exceed $50.00,’ it meant that the company would not be liable for the value of baggage beyond the sum mentioned and thereby the value was fixed at that amount as a limit of liability. I do not see how the clause reasonably could be given any other relation, meaning, or effect. The clause certainly was not one imposing a penalty of $50 on the carrier for misconduct, and nobody I think will claim that it fixed an amount of liquidated damages which could be recovered in a case of loss of the baggage independent of its value. The plaintiff would not be allowed to recover even this $50 by simply showing that she had checked and lost her baggage, but she would be compelled to prove that it was worth at least $50. Conversely, when she attempts to establish that her lost baggage was worth more than $50, the respondent, as I think, is entitled to invoke the benefit of this clause, and say, ‘You shall not recover for a valuation in excess of $50 because we have limited our liability to that amount of value.’

Probably no one will ever point to this clause as a model in form, yet it is not far different in effect from the one interpreted in the Tewes Case. There the clause which was held...