James Quirk Milling Co. v. Minneapolis & St. L. R. Co.
| Decision Date | 04 May 1906 |
| Parties | JAMES QUIRK MILLING COMPANY v. MINNEAPOLIS & ST. L. R. CO. |
| Court | Minnesota Supreme Court |
JAMES QUIRK MILLING COMPANY
v.
MINNEAPOLIS & ST. L. R. CO.
Supreme Court of Minnesota.
May 4, 1906.
Appeal from District Court, Hennepin County; Frank C. Brooks, Judge.
Action by the James Quirk Milling Company against the Minneapolis & St. Louis Railroad Company. From an order sustaining a demurrer to the complaint, plaintiff appeals. Affirmed.
A railway company, being under no legal obligations to grant to any one the privilege of building an elevator upon its right of way, may, without violating any rule of public policy, grant the privilege by contract on condition that it shall not be responsible for damages caused by fires resulting from the operation of its engines.
Wm. H. Hallam, for appellant.
John I. Dille, for respondent.
ELLIOTT, J.
The appellant under a contract with the railway company erected a grain elevator upon its right of way. The building was destroyed by fire negligently scattered by the company's locomotives. The action was brought to recover the resulting damages, and the trial court sustained a demurrer to the complaint. The appeal is from this order.
The elevator was constructed under a contract between the parties which contained the following provision: ‘In consideration of the rights hereby acquired the second party agrees * * * to protect, save harmless, and indemnify the railway company, its successors and assigns, from liability to any person, corporation, or company, for or on account of any loss or damage by fire communicated by or escaping from any locomotive, engine, or car, or resulting in any manner from the construction or operation of said track.’ The appellant contends that this contract is against public policy and therefore void. This involves the denial of the right of the parties to enter into such agreement. Public policy requires that the right to contract shall be preserved inviolate in ordinary cases. It is denied only when the particular contract violates some principle which is of even more importance to the general public. As said by Sir George Jessel, M. R., in Printing, etc., Co. v. Sampson, L. R. 19 Eq. 462, 465, 44 L. J. Ch. 705: ‘It must not be forgotten that you are not to extend arbitrarily those rules, which say that a given contract is void as being against the public policy, because, if there is one thing which, more than another, public policy requires, it is that men of full age and competent understanding shall have the utmost liberty of contracting, and that their contracts, when entered into freely and voluntarily, shall be held sacred and shall be enforced by the courts of justice. Therefore you have this paramount public policy to consider, that you are not likely to interfere with the freedom of contract.’ In Baltimore, etc., Ry. Co. v. Voigt, 176 U. S. 505, 20 Sup. Ct. 387,44 L. Ed. 560, the court said: ‘It must not be forgotten that the right of private contract is no small part of the liberty of the citizen, and that the usual and most important function of courts of justice is rather to maintain and enforce contracts than to enable parties thereto to escape from their obligations on the pretext of public policy, unless it clearly appears that they contravene public right or the public welfare.’ It follows that the party who asserts that a particular contract is against public policy has the burden of proving the same. Printing, etc., Co. v. Sampson, supra; Rousillion v. Rousillion, 14 Ch. Div. 351; U. S. v. Trans-Missouri, etc., Co., 58 Fed. 58...
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