Goldberg v. Ahnapee & W. Ry. Co.

• Decision Date: 24 November 1899
• Citation: 80 N.W. 920,105 Wis. 1
• Court: Wisconsin Supreme Court
• Parties: GOLDBERG ET AL. v. AHNAPEE & W. RY. CO.

105 Wis. 1

80 N.W. 920

GOLDBERG ET AL.

v.AHNAPEE & W. RY. CO.

Supreme Court of Wisconsin.

Nov. 24, 1899.

Appeal from circuit court, Door county; Samuel D. Hastings, Jr., Judge.

Action by Leopold Goldberg and others against the Ahnapee & Western Railway Company. Judgment for defendant, and plaintiffs appeal. Affirmed.

One of the plaintiffs, a traveling man, sent his trunks, containing merchandise, and not baggage, to the station of the defendant railway company at about 5 o'clock on the evening of January 27, 1897, intending to check them as baggage the next morning on a train leaving about 6 o'clock. During the night they were destroyed by fire, without fault or negligence of the defendant. Suit was brought for their value, and verdict found for the defendant on instructions not excepted to, from judgment on which this appeal is brought. Plaintiff moved to set aside the verdict as against the evidence. There was evidence tending to show that the contents of the trunk were not properly baggage, but merchandise; that the plaintiff Leopold Goldberg sent the trunks to the station the night before because it would be inconvenient and more expensive in the morning; that they were delivered in the freight house by his drayman without the knowledge of the defendant or its station agent; that, though the trunks were noticed when the freight house was shut up in the evening, the agent had no knowledge of their ownership, or the purposes for which they had been so left; that the rules of the defendant company prohibited the checking of baggage until a half hour before train time, which plaintiff knew. There was conflict as to some of the facts stated above, and as to other facts, which it is unnecessary to mention.Felker, Doe & Felker and Y. V. Dreutzer, for appellants.

Greene, Vroman, Fairchild, North & Parker, for respondent.

DODGE, J. (after stating the facts).

1. The liability of a carrier for ordinary baggage while in its possession for carriage as such is very different from the liability while the same articles are in storage with it. In the first case it is an insurer; in the latter, liable only as a bailee for ordinary care. The exact point at which the possession for carriage begins and ends is not easy to define, but it is not such as to exclude some reasonable time at stations before and after actual transportation. After transportation the higher liability continues only for such time as is reasonably necessary to present...