Guess & Glover v. Southern Ry.

• Decision Date: 19 February 1906
• Citation: 53 S.E. 421,73 S.C. 264
• Parties: GUESS & GLOVER v. SOUTHERN RY.
• Court: South Carolina Supreme Court

53 S.E. 421

73 S.C. 264

GUESS & GLOVER v. SOUTHERN RY.

Supreme Court of South Carolina

February 19, 1906

Appeal from Common Pleas Circuit Court of Hampton County; Aldrich Judge.

Action by Guess & Glover against the Southern Railway. From an order striking out certain allegations of the complaint, plaintiffs appeal. Affirmed.

W. S Tillinghast and A. McIver Bostick for appellants. B. L. Abney and Jas. W. Moore, for respondent.

GARY A. J.

The defendant's attorney made a motion to require the plaintiffs to make their complaint definite and certain, and to strike out certain allegations as irrelevant and redundant, whereupon his honor, the circuit judge granted the following order: "A motion having been made in the above-stated action for an order requiring plaintiffs in the above-stated cause to make their complaint more definite and certain, and to strike out as irrelevant and redundant certain portions of paragraph 4 of said complaint after hearing argument of counsel, it is ordered: That the following portions of paragraph 4 of said complaint be stricken out as irrelevant and redundant, to wit, the words 'in their business,' which follow immediately after the words 'inflicting great loss and injury'; also the words 'and worry and anxiety of mind, in that plaintiffs had gone to great trouble and expense to prepare for the prompt arrival and setting up of said machinery, which was necessary to their business,' following immediately after the words 'in their business'; also the words 'and the same was greatly hampered, curtailed, lost, and destroyed by the delay aforesaid in transporting and delivering of said machinery,' following immediately after the words 'which was necessary to their business.' That the plaintiffs do amend their complaint in accordance with this order and serve a copy of the amended complaint upon the attorney of defendant within 20 days from the date of this order, and the defendant have 20 days after the service of said copy of amended complaint in which to plead thereto." The first and second paragraphs of the complaint are formal; the third alleges that the defendant received for shipment at Charlotte, N. C., certain machinery consisting of a gin, engine, etc., consigned to the plaintiffs at Richardson, a station on the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad, in Hampton county. The fourth paragraph is as follows: "That the defendant, notwithstanding its said contract, so negligently and carelessly handled said shipment in the matter of its transportation over its said lines to point of delivery to connecting line aforesaid, in utter reckless and wanton disregard of its duty and obligation to plaintiffs, the consignee thereof, as to consume a most unnecessary and unreasonable length of time before delivery to connecting line as aforesaid, thereby, that is to say, by said careless, negligent, unnecessary, and wanton delay in transit on the part of defendant, its servants, agents and employés, inflicting upon plaintiffs great loss and injury in their business and worry and anxiety of mind, in that plaintiffs had gone to great trouble and expense to prepare for the prompt arrival and setting up of said machinery which was necessary to their business, and the same was greatly hampered, curtailed, lost,...