Illinois Cent. R. Co. v. Walker

• Decision Date: 14 January 1918
• Docket Number: 19866
• Citation: 116 Miss. 431,77 So. 191
• Court: Mississippi Supreme Court
• Parties: ILLINOIS CENTRAL R. CO. v. WALKER

77 So. 191

116 Miss. 431

ILLINOIS CENTRAL R. CO. v. WALKER

No. 19866

Supreme Court of Mississippi

January 14, 1918

Division A

APPEAL from the circuit court of Clay county, HON. T. B. WATKINS Judge.

Suit by Ben Walker against the Illinois Central Railroad Company. From a judgment for plaintiff, defendant appeals.

The facts are fully stated in the opinion of the court.

Judgment reversed and case remanded.

Wells May & Sanders, R. V. Fletcher and Roberts & Beckett, for appellant.

Gates T. Ivy, for appellee.

OPINION

HOLDEN, J.

This cause originated in the circuit court of Clay county. The declaration was filed in that court on December 15, 1916. The suit is founded upon an alleged breach of the contract obligations of a shipping contract in interstate commerce, which shipping contract was made between the plaintiff in the court below and the Yazoo & Mississippi Valley Railroad Company for the transportation of four carloads of cattle from Wilson, a point in the state of Louisiana, to West Point, a station in the state of Mississippi. The suit is brought against the Illinois Central Railroad Company alone; the said company being a connecting carrier. The declaration alleges that at the time of the contract for the shipment of said cattle, that the said Illinois Central Railroad Company was the true owner of a system of railway known as the Yazoo & Mississippi Valley Railroad Company, and that on October 19, 1916, the Illinois Central Railroad Company, defendant, "through and under the name and style of the Yazoo & Mississippi Valley Railroad Company," entered into a contract with the plaintiff for the transportation of said cattle. The shipping contract referred to is made an exhibit to the declaration, and upon inspection it appears as a contract made by the Yazoo & Mississippi Valley Railroad Company with the plaintiff, and upon the face of the instrument the Illinois Central Railroad Company is not a party to it. The gravamen of the complaint made in the declaration is that when said contract was made, the cars upon which the cattle were to be loaded were standing upon the track ready to be loaded, and that the cattle were in fact properly loaded in good order at Wilson, La., yet the defendant wholly failed to properly discharge its duty, and did in fact negligently transport the cattle with unreasonable and unwarranted delay, and with gross negligence, so that the shipment did not arrive at destination until the evening of October 22, 1916, and that by reason of said delay the plaintiff suffered damage by shrinkage in the weight of the cattle.

To the declaration so filed by the plaintiff in the court below, the defendant, the Illinois Central Railroad Company, filed two pleas; one the general issue plea of not guilty, and the other the general issue plea of non assumpsit.

Issue having been joined on the pleadings as shown above, the plaintiff, in support of his declaration, produced certain testimony which appears in full in the record and the substance of which, for the purposes of this appeal, is now briefly stated: That three cars were loaded on the 18th of October and on the evening of the 19th of October. At this point it was sought to introduce the shipping contract made exhibit to the declaration, and to this introduction the defendant objected upon the ground that the Illinois Central Railroad Company was the sole defendant, and the Yazoo & Mississippi Valley Railroad Company, the initial carrier, was not a party defendant. The objection of the defendant was overruled, and the contracts were admitted in evidence. The bill of lading was also introduced in evidence and appears in the record. They both show that the contract was one made with the Yazoo & Mississippi Valley Railroad Company for an interstate shipment of four cars of cattle from Wilson, La., to West Point, Miss. The cattle were loaded at a switch track about one and one-half miles from Wilson, at a point called "Gurlie." It also appears from plaintiff's testimony that the cattle were permitted by the initial carrier, the Yazoo & Mississippi Valley Railroad Company to remain on the side tracks for a period of twenty-four hours because there was no engine there to pull them to the unloading chute. All of this was on the part of the Yazoo & Mississippi Valley Railroad Company, the initial carrier. None of this evidence was admissible as against the sole defendant, the Illinois Central Railroad Company, unless it be assumed that the two railroad companies are identical. Plaintiff then testified that the cattle were received by him at West Point on the morning of October 23, 1916, the cars having arrived on the night of the 22d of October, and they were unloaded on the 23d. They were, according to plaintiff's evidence, in bad condition. They were hollow-eyed, gaunt, and bruised, and some of them were crippled. Upon receiving the cattle the plaintiff drove them out to his pasture, and fed them that night, and fed and watered and weighed them the next morning. They showed an average loss in weight of one hundred and nine to one hundred and ten pounds. The loss in weight under reasonable conditions should not have been more than forty pounds.

The entire claim of the plaintiff was for damages against the Illinois Central Railroad Company on account of alleged shrinkage in the weight of the cattle, caused by delay in transportation. There was no proof and no effort to prove any delay or mishandling of the shipment by...