Pratt v. Railway Company

• Decision Date: 01 October 1877
• Citation: 24 L.Ed. 336,95 U.S. 43
• Parties: PRATT v. RAILWAY COMPANY
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

95 U.S. 43

24 L.Ed. 336

PRATT v. RAILWAY COMPANY.

October Term, 1877

ERROR to the Circuit Court of the United States for the Eastern District of Michigan.

The facts are stated in the opinion of the court.

Mr. William Jennison for the plaintiffs in error.

Mr. Isaac P. Christiancy, contra.

MR. JUSTICE HUNT delivered the opinion of the court.

The Grand Trunk Railway Company is egaged as a common carrier in the transportation of persons and property. This action seeks to recover damages for a violation of its duty in respect to certain merchandise shipped from Liverpool to St. Louis, and carried over its road from Montreal to Detroit. The goods reached the city of Detroit on the 17th of October, 1865, and on the night of the 18th of the same month were destroyed by fire.

The defendant claims to have made a complete delivery of the goods to the Michigan Central Railroad Company, a succeeding carrier, and thus to have discharged itself from liability before the occurrence of the fire.

If the liability of the succeeding carrier had attached, the liability of the defendant was discharged. Ransom v. Holland, 59 N. Y. 611; O'Neil v. N. Y. Central Railroad Co., 60 id. 138.

The uestion, therefore, is, Had the duty of the succeeding carrier commenced when the goods were burned?

The liability of a carrier commences when the goods are delivered to him or his authorized agent for transportation, and are accepted. Rogers v. Wheeler, 52 N. Y. 262; Grosvenor v. N. Y. Central Railroad Co., 59 id. 34.

If a common carrier agrees that property intended for transportation by him may be deposited at a particular place without express notice to him, such deposit amounts to notice, and is a delivery. Merriam v. Hartford Railroad Co., 24 Conn. 354; Converse v. N. & N. Y. Tr. Co., 33 id. 166.

The liability of the carrier is fixed by accepting the property to be transported, and the acceptance is complete whenever the property thus comes into his possession with his assent. Illinois Railroad Co. v. Smyser, 38 Ill. 354.

If the deposit of the goods is a mere accessory to the carriage, that is, if they are deposited for the purpose of being carried without further orders, the responsibility of the carrier begins from the time they are received; but, when they are subject to the further order of the owner, the case is otherwise. Ladere v. Griffith, 25 N. Y. 364; Blossom v. Griffin, 13 id. 569; Wade v. Wheeler, 47 id. 658; Michigan Railroad v. Schurlz, 7 Mich. 515.

The same proposition is stated in a different from when it is said that the liability of a carrier is discharged by a delivery of the goods. If he is an intermediate carrier, this duty is performed by a delivery to the succeeding carrier for further transportation, and an acceptance by him. Auth. supra.

The precise facts upon which the question here arises are as follows:——

At the time the fire occurred, the defendant had no freight room or depot at Detroit, except a single apartment in the freight-depot of the Michigan Central Railroad Company. Said depot was a building several hundred feet in length, and some three or four hundred feet in width, and was all under one roof. It was divided into sections or apartments, without any partition-wall between them. There was a railway track in the centre of the building, upon which cars were run into the building to be loaded with freight. The only use which the defendant had of said section was for the deposit of all goods and property which came over its road, or was delivered for shipment over it. This section, in common with the rest of the building, was under the control and supervision of the Michigan Central Railroad Company, as hereinafter mentioned. The defendant employed in this section two men, who checked freight which came into it. All fright which came into the section was handled exclusively by the employees of the Michigan Central Railroad Company, for which, as well as for the use of said section, said defendant paid said company a fixed compensation per hundred-weight. Goods which came into the section from defendant's road, restined over the road of the Michigan Central Railroad Company, were, at the time of unloading from defendant's cars, deposited by said employees of the Michigan Central Railroad Company in a certain place in said section, from which they were loaded into the cars of said latter company by said employees when they were ready to receive them; and, after they were so placed, the defendant's employees did not further handle said goods. Whenever the agent of the Michigan Central Railroad Company would see any goods deposited in the section of said freight-building set apart for the use of the defendant, destined over the line of said Central Railroad, he would call upon the agent of the defendant in said freight-building, and, from a way-bill exhibited to him by said agent, he would take a list of said goods, and would then, also, for the first time, learn their ultimate place of destination, together with the amount of freight-charges due thereon; that, from the information thus obtained from said way-bill in the hands of the defendant's agent, way-bill would be made out by the Michigan Central Railroad Company for the transportation of said goods over its line of railway, and not before.

These goods were, on the 17th of...