Freter v. Embassy Moving & Storage Co.

Hammond, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. The appellant stored his lares and penates, including his collection of stamps and coins, with the appellee, a ware ¹⁴ houseman in Silver Spring, from May to September 1955. When they were delivered to his new home, many items were found to be damaged from water, moisture and mildew. In the suit of the owner against the warehouseman, the trial judge, sitting without a jury, found that all of the damage had been caused by water which had entered the warehouse on August 12 and 13 (through the walls or under the door of the warehouse or both), “not by moisture or standing in a humid place” and occurred as a result of water from hurricane “Connie” “and that was an act of God, and, under an act of God, you couldn’t hold the defendant responsible.” The appellant urges that there was no showing that the entry of the water into the warehouse resulted wholly and unpreventably from an act of God, that the warehouseman moved the goods from one warehouse to another and so is liable, regardless of negligence, and that the warehouseman did not exercise reasonable care after the initial wetting of the goods in that it let them remain wet for almost a month.

The evidence was that the goods were received by the warehouseman in dry and good condition, that the smaller articles, including the stamps and the coins, were packed in cardboard cartons marked in crayon with a short description of the contents. When the boxes were delivered, some fell apart because the bottoms of the boxes were wet. Other boxes had dried but showed evidence of having been wet. Many stamps were damaged from water or from fungus growth as a result of remaining in a humid atmosphere, and coins were damaged by rust and corrosion.

The bedding was wet and the linens were moist and mildewed. The appellant was required to utilize almost his entire yard to spread out and dry the various damp articles. There was testimony by an expert that the stamp collection was worth $1,200.00 less than when it was delivered to the storage company for safekeeping. The owner was asked whether an officer of the warehouse company had told him that the water in the warehouse was caused by a hurricane.

He replied that there had been no hurricane in Washington that summer, and Judge Lawlor said that the court would take judicial notice that a hurricane ¹⁵ designated as “Connie” had come up the Chesapeake Bay on August 12 and 13. The only testimony as to the cause of the entry of water into the warehouse came from employees of the company. The owner, without objection, testified that an officer of the warehouseman told him that rain came through the walls of the warehouse during the rainstorm of August 12 and 13 to such an extent that it covered the floor and goods were floating around. Other employees testified that the warehouse was a two-story brick and cinder block building, newly built for use as a warehouse, that it was built on a hill so that it was, in effect, ground level on both floors with access to each floor through double doors large enough to admit trucks.

They further testified that on August 13 water “came in underneath our big doors”; that there had been no water in the warehouse before or since; that on the morning of August 13 there was an inch and a half of water on the floors and that all of the employees, including the clerical force, got mops and got the water out as quickly as possible, and that no water came through the wall. It is undisputed that the owner was not told of the wetting of his goods and had no intimation of it until they were delivered to him on September 5, and that the goods in cartons were allowed to stay as they were, no effort having been made to move them or to dry them out, because of lack of space. Code, 1957, Art. 14A, Sec. 21, provides: “A warehouseman shall be