Metcalf v. City of St. Louis

• Decision Date: 31 October 1847
• Citation: 11 Mo. 102
• Parties: METCALF ET AL. v. THE CITY OF ST. LOUIS.
• Court: Missouri Supreme Court

11 Mo. 102

METCALF ET AL.

v.THE CITY OF ST. LOUIS.

Supreme Court of Missouri.

October Term, 1847.

PEAL FROM ST. LOUIS COURT OF COMMON PLEAS.

CALLAHAN, for Plaintiffs.

HAIGHT, for Defendant.

MCBRIDE, J.

This was an action on the case brought by the plaintiffs against the defendant in the St. Louis Court of Common Pleas. The declaration contained several counts, varying the statement of the cause of action, but amounting in substance as follows: In the summer of 1846, the steamboat Lehigh, the property of the plaintiffs, regularly licensed, &c., navigating the river Mississipi, and engaged in the transportation of freight and passengers, on a voyage from Cincinnati to St. Louis, arrived at the common landing of St. Louis, with a load of freight and a number of passengers, when the agents and servants of the defendant, by direction and authority of the defendant, prevented the discharge of freight and the landing of passengers from the boat, and required the boat to leave the port, and prevented her from landing for the space of ten days, & c. The defendant pleaded, first, the general issue; second, an ordinance of the city council of St. Louis, approved, 2nd September, 1843, by which it was ordained, “that if from information or any other means, the mayor, the president of the board of health, or the health officer, shall have cause to suspect that any steam or other boat, is about to land, or has landed, within the limits of the city, or within ten miles thereof, with the small-pox or other contagious disease on board, or whose crew and passengers have been lately exposed to the infection of the small-pox, or other contagious disease, it shall be the duty of the mayor to order an examination by the health officer or some respectable physician, and if upon such examination, it should be the opinion of such officer or physician, that it would be unsafe to the city, that such boat be permitted to land her passengers, crew or cargo, he shall thereupon cause the said boat to descend the river the distance of at least five miles from the city, and there perform quarantine for any number of days, not exceeding thirty, as in the opinion of the health officer or physician shall be deemed expedient.” The plea averred, said ordinance remained in full force from its passage until the commencement of this suit, and that the health officer of said city, had cause to suspect that said boat had landed within the limits of the city, and that the passengers on board of the boat had lately been...