Sweet v. Postal Tel. & Cable Co.

• Decision Date: 16 January 1901
• Citation: 47 A. 881,22 R.I. 344
• Parties: SWEET v. POSTAL TELEGRAPH & CABLE CO.
• Court: Rhode Island Supreme Court

47 A. 881

22 R.I. 344

SWEET

v. POSTAL TELEGRAPH & CABLE CO.

Supreme Court of Rhode Island.

Jan. 16, 1901.

Action by P. Eugene Sweet against the Postal Telegraph & Cable Company. Judgment for defendant, and plaintiff moved for a new trial. Motion denied.

Peter J. Quinn, for plaintiff. Claude J. Parnsworth, for defendant.

STINESS, C. J. The plaintiff sues in trespass on the case for damages arising from the alleged negligence of the defendant in delivering a telegram addressed to him. The message was taken at the company's office in Boston at 9:10 p. m., November 16, 1895. It was sent to Pawtucket, and there received at 9:45 the same evening. The Pawtucket office closed for regular business at 9 o'clock, but a person employed by newspapers, to send and receive messages for the press, was in the office, and received the message, leaving it on file for the operator employed by the company, who had left the office for the night The message was delivered the next day, Sunday, at 9:55 a. m.

The controlling question is whether the receipt of the message for transmission, after the terminal office had closed, was an act of negligence. This depends upon whether the receiving agent was bound to know the time of closing in the terminal office. The decisions on this point are practically unanimous that a, receiving agent is not so bound, for the reason that in view of the great number of telegraph offices all over the country, and their variant conditions, some large and requiring constant service, others small and with infrequent calls, a requirement that every agent should know the hours of every office would be unreasonable, if not impossible. To hold a company to such a duty would either require a uniform time of closing in all offices which are not constantly open, or a directory of all such offices with their various hours at different seasons of the year. The former alternative would compel a service at small stations far beyond their needs, and the latter, as Mr. Justice Miller said in Given v. Telegraph Co. (C. C.) 24 Fed. 119, would be "onerous and inconvenient to a degree which forbids it to be treated as a duty to its customers for neglect of which it must be held liable to damages." This rule, stated in Crosw. Electricity, § 421, note 1, 2, and 25 Am. & Eng. Enc. Law, p. 785, note g, is supported by cases cited. The plaintiff relies on Telegraph Go. v. Broesche (1889) 72 Tex. 654, 10 S. W. 734, which went to the extent of holding that the fact...