Hill Mfg. Co. v. Providence & New York Steamship Co.

• Decision Date: 31 August 1878
• Citation: 125 Mass. 292
• Parties: Hill Manufacturing Company v. Providence and New York Steamship Company
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

125 Mass. 292

Hill Manufacturing Company v. Providence and New York Steamship Company

Supreme Court of Massachusetts

August 31, 1878

Argued March 19, 1877 [Syllabus Material] [Syllabus Material] [Syllabus Material] [Syllabus Material] [Syllabus Material] [Syllabus Material] [Syllabus Material] [Syllabus Material]

Suffolk. Contract, with a count in tort, alleged to be for the same cause of action. Writ dated September 26, 1870. The count in tort alleged that the defendant, a corporation duly established by law, was a common carrier of goods and merchandise; that on May 22, 1868, it received at Providence, in the State of Rhode Island, from the plaintiff's agents, thirty cases of bleached cotton cloth, which it agreed with the plaintiff, for a reasonable compensation, to transport safely from Providence to the city of New York; that the thirty cases contained 39,691 yards of cloth, of the value of $ 7000; that the defendant so carelessly and negligently conducted itself that the cotton cloth, while being so transported by the defendant, was burned and injured by fire to the amount of $ 6000. The answer admitted that the defendant was a carrier; denied loss by negligence; set up a limitation of liability under the U.S. St. of March 3, 1851; and relied upon certain proceedings under that act, in the District Court of the United States for the Southern District of New York.

After the former decision, reported 113 Mass. 495, the case was tried in this court before Lord, J., who allowed a bill of exceptions in substance as follows:

It appeared that the cotton cloth in question was delivered at Lowell to the Boston & Lowell Railroad Company, to be conveyed by railroad to Providence, Rhode Island, and thence by the defendant's line of steamers to New York; that it was delivered in Providence to the defendant on May 23, 1868, and put on board their steamship the Oceanus; that the steamship sailed that afternoon, and arrived in New York the next morning, Sunday, but none of the cargo was discharged on that day; and that on Sunday afternoon a fire, which originated in one of the defendant's buildings on the pier at which the vessel was lying, burned the steamship to the water's edge and destroyed or damaged the cloth and nearly the whole of her other cargo, which belonged to various shippers; that portions of her cargo were afterwards discharged in a damaged condition, and no freight was earned or received by the defendant on the cargo, or any portion thereof; that the damage to the cargo by the fire largely exceeded the amount or value, immediately after the fire, of the defendant's interest in the steamer, and her freight then pending; that the defendant at the time of the fire held leases of the wharf property, and was owner of the buildings thereon.

The plaintiff contended that the fire was caused by the neglect and not by the design of the defendant; and offered evidence tending to show that at the time of the fire the pier was covered with a building between five hundred and six hundred feet long, that portion of it which covered the head of the pier being somewhat higher than the part which extended down the pier; that the sides of this building were made of pine boards painted on the outside, but not within, the roof being covered with a gravel roofing; and that the office, which was in a separate structure, standing by itself at the head of the pier within the main building with an open space between its roof and that of the main building, had wooden partitions, was occupied by the clerks employed in attending to the receipt and delivery of freight, and contained an iron stove standing about two feet from the partition, the stove-pipe running through the ceiling into a room over the office occupied by a stevedore in the employ of the defendant, and thence through the ceiling of the stevedore's room, through an open space between the top of this room and the roof of the main building, into the open air.

The plaintiff called a teamster as a witness, who testified to the foregoing details, and stated that he never saw any protection around the stove or stove-pipe, and that if there had been any such protection he should have seen it. He was not at the fire. Two firemen, called by plaintiff, testified that they received the alarm of fire at their station, and reached the premises in from three to five minutes before the fire showed itself, but when the main building was full of smoke, which apparently came from the office and the stevedore's room; that, in from three to five minutes after their arrival, they went upon the roof of the main building to cut holes through the roof, and were there from ten to twenty minutes, during which time the fire spread down the pier until it caught the steamship, which was rapidly consumed; that the steamship was not on fire when they went upon the roof first, and the fire did not catch her for some ten to twenty minutes thereafter; and that they saw no one upon the steamer except firemen, and no watchman upon the premises from the time of their arrival until the fire was extinguished; that there was no steam upon the steamship at the time of the fire, so that she could only be moved by hand; and that the wind was blowing out of the dock, and the tide was ebbing, so that their natural tendency was to float the steamship away from the pier. The plaintiff offered no evidence to show that there was any fire in the stove on May 24, or how the fire originated, except that the firemen testified that when they first went upon the roof, smoke was coming up out of or around the stove-pipe, they could not say which; and, without offering any other evidence, rested its case.

The defendant thereupon asked the judge to rule that, upon the evidence offered, the plaintiff could not maintain its action, and that the defendant was entitled to a verdict. The judge refused so to rule, but ruled that the case must be submitted to the jury upon the question whether the defendant, under all the circumstances of the case, had exercised reasonable and proper care in keeping the property intrusted to its charge. To this ruling and refusal to rule the defendant excepted.

The defendant thereupon offered evidence tending to show that it was necessary for the proper conduct of its business as a common carrier, and for the proper protection of goods during their receipt and delivery, and while awaiting the orders of the consignees, that the pier should be covered with a building substantially like that burned; that the buildings upon the pier were built about four years before the fire that they were very thoroughly built; that the sides of the buildings were made of boards tongued and grooved so as to fit into each other, and the roof was so made that, when completed, it presented nothing but a surface of gravel; (the plaintiff did not contend that the roof was of improper construction;) that the interior of the building was open from one end to the other, so that a person standing at the head of the pier could see the whole length of the pier; that the lower end and sides were closed, with openings at intervals corresponding with the gangways of the steamships, which could be shut when not needed for the receipt or discharge of cargo; that within the main building at the head of the pier were two smaller buildings; that the office was in one of these buildings, the partitions being constructed of boards planed and well finished; that the remainder of the building, adjoining the office and separated from it by a partition, was divided, by a floor in the middle, into two rooms, of which the lower, opening into the main building, was used for the keeping of passengers' luggage; and the upper was the stevedore's room above alluded to, the ceiling of the stevedore's room being on the same plane as the ceiling of the office, and both covered by the same roof; that in the office was the stove above alluded to; that the pipe from this stove passed through the partition into a drum in the stevedore's room, and thence out through the roof; and that beneath the stove, between it and the partition, and between the stove-pipe and the partition for the entire length of the former, zinc had been put as a protection; that the pipe passed through the partition through a double cylinder of tin, so arranged with holes as to allow a circulation of air between the two cylinders; that there was a similar protection where it passed through the roof, and that this was a sufficient protection against fire from the stove, and, although hot fires had been built in the stove for some years, there had never been any indication of undue heat to the partition, ceiling or roof; that there were on the pier four hydrants, connected by pipes with the main water-pipe in the street, each provided with sufficient hose, which were in good order on the day of the fire, and could be brought into use in one minute by one man; that on the day of the fire, the openings on the sides of the building over the pier were shut, except three which were open, one to afford an entrance to each of three steamships then lying at the pier, and that the entrances to the building from the street were closed; that there was on the wharf a regular watchman, who was there at the time of the fire, sitting inside the buildings where he could see the whole pier, which on that day was clear from freight; that the Oceanus was provided with all the means for extinguishing fire...