Taylor v. W. Union Tel. Co.

• Decision Date: 16 October 1895
• Citation: 95 Iowa 740,64 N.W. 660
• Parties: TAYLOR ET AL. v. WESTERN UNION TEL. CO.
• Court: Iowa Supreme Court

95 Iowa 740

64 N.W. 660

TAYLOR ET AL.

v.WESTERN UNION TEL. CO.

Supreme Court of Iowa.

Oct. 16, 1895.

Appeal from district court, Fayette county; W. A. Hoyt, Judge.

This is an action to recover damages by reason of the delay of the defendant in transmitting a telegram from Webster, in the state of South Dakota, to Aberdeen, in the same state. There was a trial by jury, and a verdict and judgment for the plaintiffs. Defendant appeals. Modified.Cummins & Wright and D. W. Clements & Son, for appellant.

Ainsworth, Hobson & Ainsworth, for appellees.

ROTHROCK, J.

1. On the 24th or 25th day of March, 1893, the plaintiffs shipped a car load of horses from West Union, in this state, destined to Monango, N. D. The shipment was in charge of Taylor, a member of plaintiffs' firm. The car arrived at a transfer near St. Paul on Saturday morning, where the horses were unloaded and fed, and were reloaded at about 6 o'clock in the evening, and proceeded on over the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railway to Aberdeen, in South Dakota, where it was necessary to remain over night, and reship from that point on the following morning. Before reaching Aberdeen, and at a station called Webster, Taylor delivered a telegram to the telegraph operator at the last-named place, which was in these words: “Webster, South Dakota, March 26, 1893. Proprietor of Wisconsin House, Aberdeen, South Dakota: Make room car load horses to-night. O. E. Taylor.” This dispatch was delivered to the operator, and the cost of transmission paid, in the evening of Sunday, March 26th, and was not transmitted until the next day, and was not delivered at Aberdeen until after 11 o'clock in the forenoon. Taylor arrived in Aberdeen with the horses after 10 o'clock at night, and found that the stable room had been all taken at the Wisconsin House stables. He tried to obtain stabling elsewhere, and did not succeed. He then turned the horses loose in the railroad stock yard, and the claim of the plaintiffs is that, by reason of the condition of the yard and the exposure to inclement weather, one of the horses contracted lung disease, from which it afterwards died.

2. The question is made by the defendant that the transportation of the horses on Sunday in South Dakota was unlawful, under a statute of the state which prohibits certain acts to be done on that day. The prohibited acts are set forth in the statute as follows: “(1) Servile labor. (2) Undue travel. (3) Public sports. (4) Trades, manufactures, and mechanical employments. (5) Public traffic. (6) Serving processes. All manner of servile labor is prohibited, except works of necessity or charity. All traveling on the first day of the week is prohibited, except such as is performed on foot, or in a conveyance carrying United States mails, or such as is done in cases of charity or necessity, or in going to or returning from a funeral or place of worship within a distance of twenty miles; or in visiting the sick and returning, or in moving one's family or household furniture when such removal was commenced on some other day. All trades, manufactures and mechanical employments are prohibited.” The court instructed the jury that if they found from the evidence “that the transportation of the horses on Sunday, and the transmitting of the telegram on that day, was necessary in view of the evidence in the case, the fact of so doing constitutes no defense to the action.” The instruction was not erroneous. Indeed, we think that the court might have directed the jury as matter of law that the Dakota Sunday law was no defense to the action. The horses were loaded at West Union, in this state, on Friday. They were reloaded and passed through part of the state of Minnesota and into South Dakota, and the shipment was not complete until Sunday night. It would be a most unreasonable rule to establish the doctrine that shippers must take notice of the Sunday laws of distant states, and so time their shipments as to avoid transportation on Sunday. This court has held that a railroad company incurs no other penalty for running trains on...