Lin v. Terre Haute & Indianapolis R.R.

• Decision Date: 22 March 1881
• Citation: 10 Mo.App. 125
• Parties: LEE LIN, Appellant, v. TERRE HAUTE AND INDIANAPOLIS RAILROAD, Respondent.
• Court: Missouri Court of Appeals

10 Mo.App. 125

LEE LIN, Appellant,

v.TERRE HAUTE AND INDIANAPOLIS RAILROAD, Respondent.

St. Louis Court of Appeals, Missouri.

Mar. 22, 1881.

1. Where one railroad company sells to a traveller a through ticket and check for his trunk over its own and connecting roads, and, in pursuance of the contract thus made, the passenger is transported to the destination called for by the ticket and the check, and his trunk is delivered to him by the last carrier, the lock broken and a portion of the contents stolen, these facts entitle the passenger to recover damages from the last carrier.

2. To protect himself, the last carrier must show that he delivered the trunk to the passenger in the same condition in which he received it.

3. Such a contract is a contract with each several carrier who, under it, undertakes the transportation of the passenger and his baggage.

4. Evidence that when the baggage was delivered by the last carrier the package was broken and a part of its contents missing, is prima facie evidence that the loss occurred through the negligence or fraud of the last carrier; and casts upon such carrier the burden of proving that the loss happened before the goods reached him.

5. The liability of a carrier of passengers for the passenger's baggage does not cease until a delivery of the same to the passenger.

6. The delivery of the baggage by the defendant at the end of its route to an intermediate carrier for delivery to the passenger, makes the latter carrier the agent of the defendant for the purpose of making the delivery.

7. In an action before a justice such a statement as will apprise the defendant of the nature of the plaintiff's demand with such certainty as to bar another action for the same demand, is sufficient.

APPEAL from the St. Louis Circuit Court, LINDLEY, J.

Reversed and remanded.

ROBERT CRAWFORD, for the appellant: The responsibility for the delivery of the baggage rested upon every road over which the baggage passed under the contract.-- Thornton Check v. Railroad Co., 2 Disney, 237; Railroad Co. v. Spratt, 2 Duv. 4; Cobb v. Abbott, 14 Pick. 289; Hart v. Railroad Co., 8 N. Y. 37; Carter v. Peck, 4 Sneed, 203; Wilson v. Railroad Co., 21 Gratt. 654. Partnership is not necessary to constitute a joint liability.-- Hutch. on Car. 127, chap. 4, sect. 715; Wyman v. Railroad Co., 4 Mo. App. 35. Where the last carrier on the line is sued for the loss, having made a partial delivery, the presumption is the loss occurred on its own line.-- Southern Express Co. v. Hess, 53 Ala. 19; Drew v. Red Line, 3 Mo. App. 501; Laughlin v. Railroad Co., 28 Wis. 204; Hooper v. Railroad Co., 15 H. L. Rep. (N. S.) 158.

EVERETT W. PATTISON, for the respondent, cited: Watkins v. Railroad Co., 8 Mo. App. 570.

THOMPSON, J., delivered the opinion of the court.

The amount in controversy in this case is small, and the plaintiff a very humble person, but the principal involved is very important to the public, and, so far as we know, has not been settled in this State. The plaintiff, Lee Lin, a Chinaman, purchased in New York City, of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, a “through” passenger-ticket to St. Louis, and received from an agent of that company the usual railway baggage-check, by which, in language familiar to all persons, his baggage was checked through from New York to St. Louis. This ticket would seem to have been the ordinary coupon ticket which all railway companies sell, as the evidence shows, to travellers going to points beyond their own line. The last road over which the plaintiff came on this ticket was the defendant's road, known as the “Vandalia Line.” There was evidence tending to show that the plaintiff's baggage consisted of a trunk, which, when delivered to the servants of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company at New York, was securely locked, and tied with ropes; that when it was delivered by the servants of the defendant to the servants of the St. Louis Transfer Company, at the Union Depot in St. Louis, to whom the plaintiff had paid fifty cents to carry it to the house in St. Louis where he was to stop, its lock was broken off, and that sixty silver dollars and two silk handkerchiefs had been taken from it, which were in it when the plaintiff parted with it in New York. The present action is brought for $62.50, the alleged value of the money, the handkerchiefs, and the lock. Judgment was rendered for the plaintiff before a justice of the peace, the suit was appealed to the Circuit Court, and there the jury were directed to find for the defendant.

The plaintiff files a statement of his cause of action before the justice of the peace, in which he alleges that the Pennsylvania, Pittsburg, Cincinnati, and the defendant company constitute an association of common carriers for the purpose of carrying passengers and their baggage to and from New York City and St. Louis, under the different names of “Vandalia Line,” “Vandalia, Panhandle, and Pennsylvania Railroad,” and “Vandalia and Panhandle Line.” It then sets out substantially the above facts, and alleges “that the said company, including the defendant, did not safely carry and deliver the baggage of the plaintiff at St. Louis,” etc., and alleges that the articles described as having been taken from the trunk “were lost by the fraud or gross negligence of the defendant as aforesaid.” The testimony shows that the defendant company's railroad was usually known as the “Vandalia Line;” and that the words “Vandalia Line” were written in prominent letters over and around the general offices of the company, and on their passenger and freight contracts, and advertisements; that the defendant's road extends only from East St. Louis to Indianapolis; that the defendant company issued through coupon tickets to New York over its line of railway, in connection with the Pittsburg, Cincinnati, and St. Louis Railway, known as the “Panhandle Road,” and the Pennsylvania Railroad; that the coupons which compose these tickets are taken up by the conductors of the said roads respectively; but that the other roads named formed no part of the “Vandalia Line;” that these roads had no special arrangement with each other, but the arrangement by which these through coupon tickets were issued was the same as the defendant road had with all other roads running east, and that all railroads in the United States issued coupons tickets over every other railroad in the United States in the same way, each coupon being taken up by the conductor of the particular railroad named upon it, such road receiving from the company selling the ticket its proportionate share of the passage-money according to the number of miles which the coupon represents. It also appears that the cars of the “Vandalia Line” run only on the defendant's road between East St. Louis and Indianapolis, at which place passengers going east or west change cars, and their baggage is transferred from the train of one connecting road to that of the other.

The plaintiff's position is that this testimony would authorize a jury to infer that there was a joint undertaking on the part of the three railroad companies named, to carry the plaintiff and his trunk from New York to St. Louis; that for a breach of this undertaking the three companies are jointly liable to the plaintiff; and that, as in this State joint obligations are also several, the plaintiff may maintain an action against either of the defendants at his convenience. He seeks to bring this case within the decision of this court in Wyman v. Railroad Company, 4 Mo. App. 35, 39, in which Judge Hayden, after examining a number of decisions of other courts, declares it to be well settled that “if several common carriers, having each its own line, associate and form what is to the shipper a continuous line, and contract to carry goods through for an agreed price, which the shipper or consignee pays in one sum, and which the carriers divide among themselves, then as to other parties with whom they contract, they are liable jointly for a loss taking place on any part of the whole line.” That was a case where a number of connecting railway companies had formed a voluntary association to run through freight-cars between Boston and St. Louis, called the “Blue Line Transit Company,” and hence, on its facts, is not a precedent on which we can decide this case. Neither has the case of Watkins v. Railroad Company, 8 Mo. App. 570, which the defendant invokes, any application to the facts before us.

For the purposes of this case, as it now stands, it is not necessary for us to decide whether an arrangement between connecting railway companies by which one of them sells a “through” ticket and gives a “through” check for baggage to a remote point over the roads of the others, makes them joint undertakers with the passenger, in such a sense that all, or either of them is liable for the defaults of the servants of the others. The question is of the greatest importance to the public and to the transportation companies; since, if the rule were established that such an arrangement has the effect contended for by the plaintiff, it might operate to break up the system of through ticketing and through checking, which is of great advantage to the travelling public, and presumably to the companies. On the other hand, when a traveller...