Grady v. Blue Line Transfer & Storage Co.
| Decision Date | 14 November 1922 |
| Docket Number | 34196 |
| Citation | 190 N.W. 375,195 Iowa 300 |
| Parties | E. C. GRADY, Appellant, v. BLUE LINE TRANSFER & STORAGE COMPANY, Appellee |
| Court | Iowa Supreme Court |
REHEARING DENIED FEBRUARY 17, 1923.
Appeal from Polk District Court.--JOSEPH E. MEYER, Judge.
ACTION against the defendant, as warehouseman, for damages for negligence in the storage of potatoes. The petition was in two counts: the first alleged special agreements, which were breached, to the damage of the plaintiff; the second count charged negligence as a warehouseman, in the care of plaintiff's potatoes. The trial court withdrew the second count, and submitted the case upon the first count alone. There was a verdict for the defendant, and judgment thereon. The plaintiff appeals.--Reversed.
Reversed and remanded.
Frank J. Comfort, G. P. North, and F. H. Pollock, for appellant.
Clark & Byers, for appellee.
On October 30, 1918, the plaintiff delivered to the defendant for storage in defendant's warehouse, 2,146 bushels of potatoes. They continued in storage until March following, at which time they were in a greatly damaged condition. Plaintiff's first count alleged certain special agreements: That defendant agreed to erect false bottoms in the potato bins, so that the potatoes would not rest on the cement floor; that it agreed to pile the potatoes not to exceed four feet in height; that it agreed to protect the temperature against becoming too warm; that these agreements were all breached by the defendant; and that, as a result of such breach, the potatoes were damaged so as to become a total loss.
Under the second count of his petition, the plaintiff charged the delivery of the potatoes to the defendant for storage in good condition, and that, through the negligence of the defendant as a warehouseman, the goods were greatly damaged. Plaintiff introduced evidence tending to sustain the special agreement pleaded in the first count and the breach thereof, and that the damages sustained by plaintiff resulted from such breach. At the close of the evidence, the court withdrew from the consideration of the jury the second count, and submitted the case upon the first count alone.
The more serious question in the case as presented to us is whether the court properly withdrew from the jury the second count, and we turn first to that question. The rule of duty and liability of a warehouseman is set forth in Section 3138-a21 of the Supplement to the Code, 1913, as follows:
"A warehouseman shall be liable for any loss or injury to the goods caused by his failure to exercise such care in regard to them as a reasonably careful owner of similar goods would exercise, but he shall not be liable, in the absence of an agreement to the contrary, for any loss or injury to the goods which could not have been avoided by the exercise of such care."
A warehouseman is not an insurer of goods in storage, but he is charged with ordinary care in the protection of the same. The burden is upon the complaining plaintiff to show that his damages, if any, have resulted from the failure of the warehouseman...
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