Harvey v. Connecticut & P. R. R. Co.

• Decision Date: 25 May 1878
• Parties: William Harvey v. Connecticut and Passumpsic Rivers Railroad Company
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

124 Mass. 421

William Harvey v. Connecticut and Passumpsic Rivers Railroad Company

Supreme Court of Massachusetts

May 25, 1878

Argued March 19, 1877

Suffolk. Contract on the following agreement: "The Connecticut & Passumpsic Rivers Railroad Company agrees to transport for Wm. Harvey & Co., lumber, such as railroad ties, shingles, hewn and sawed timber of all kinds clapboards, shingle and stave-bolts, from Warwick and Askerbaska stations, on the Grand Trunk Railway, in Canada to Boston, at sixty-seven dollars eighty cents per car of ten gross tons, for twelve months from this date, in United States currency; also from Dusett's Landing, in Canada for seventy-six 40/100 dollars per car of same weight. Boston, August 31, 1871.

"Emmons Raymond, Prest."

At the trial, in this court, before Colt, J., the jury returned a verdict for the plaintiff; and the judge reported the case for the consideration of the full court. The facts appear in the opinion.

Verdict set aside.

C. T. Russell & C. T. Russell, Jr., for the defendant.

R. D. Smith, for the plaintiff.

Endicott, J. Lord & Soule, JJ., absent.

OPINION

Endicott, J.

The defendant agreed in writing with the plaintiff to transport lumber from certain stations on the Grand Trunk Railway, in Canada, to Boston, at a certain rate of freight, for a period of twelve months from August 31, 1871. This agreement constituted a continuing offer, on the part of the defendant, to transport such lumber as the plaintiff should furnish at the specified points during the period named, and was binding on the defendant whenever, during that time, the plaintiff tendered lumber for transportation according to its terms; and failure to transport the lumber afterwards offered by the plaintiff was a breach of the contract. Bornstein v. Lans, 104 Mass. 214.

It also appeared that the plaintiff informed the company, at the time, that he desired to make this contract, because he wished to make contracts with other persons to sell and deliver railroad ties in Boston. He afterwards made contracts with two railroads for the delivery of ties in Boston. He notified the defendant for the first time in May or June, 1872, that he had made such contracts, and demanded transportation for a portion of these ties to Boston, under his contract. This the defendant failed to do.

As the plaintiff had made no contracts for the delivery of ties in Boston at the time when the defendant entered into the agreement to transport, and no notice was or could then have been given of the character and terms of those contracts, we are of opinion that the defendant cannot be held liable in damages for the profits which would have accrued to the plaintiff under such subsequent contracts. Such damages could not have been in the contemplation of the parties when they made their contract, as a probable result of a breach of it.

When a carrier receives goods for transportation, and fails to deliver them, the owner is entitled to recover the market value of the goods at the time and place at which they should have been delivered. Spring v. Haskell, 4 Allen 112. And where the carrier negligently delays the delivery of goods, he is liable for loss in their market value during the delay. Cutting v. Grand Trunk Railway, 13 Allen 381. It is said in that case that this "is the most simple and just rule, as well as the easiest to be applied; for it depends on the general market value of the goods, and involves no question of contingent or speculative profits, and no consideration of any other contracts made or omitted to be made by the plaintiff in view of his contract with the defendant. To refer to such other contracts, or the profits which might have resulted from them, not within the knowledge or contemplation of the defendant, would be to hold him liable for the consequences, or allow him the benefit, not of his own contract with the plaintiff, but of dealings between the latter and third persons, with which the defendant had nothing to do."

If therefore, the defendant had received the ties for transportation according to its contract, and failed to deliver them at all, it would have been liable for their market value in Boston at the time when they should have been delivered; or if it had negligently delayed the delivery, it would have been liable for the diminution in their market value during the delay. It would not, in either event, have been liable in damages for loss of profits sustained by the plaintiff under his subsequent contracts with other parties; unless it can be said that, by reason of the plaintiff's announcement that he intended to make such contracts, it was necessarily within the contemplation of the parties when they made the contract of transportation, and as the probable consequence of its breach, that the defendant...