Norfolk & Western Railway Co. v. Langdon

Stockbridge, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, This is a suit brought by Benjamin E. Langdon against the Norfolk and Western Eailway Company to recover for the value of ninety-two hogs claimed to have been converted by the Eailway Company. The circumstances out of which the action arises were as follows: On the 28th day of November, 1908, the plaintiff loaded on a car of the defendant at Antietam, Maryland, ninety-two hogs, consigned to himself, in care of Louis C. Uhl, Union Stock Yards, Baltimore, Maryland. At the time of shipment there was issued! to the plaintiff by the carrier a bill of lading, described therein as a uniform live stock contract, which recites that [the rate given under the contract is lower than the rate made by the railway company for the transportation of stock at the carrier’s risk and without limitation ²⁷⁰ of liability, and is based upon the conditions and agreements contained in the contract. This bill of lading was signed by the agent of the carrier, and also by the shipper, and both parties therefore were chargeable with notice of its contents, and of an assent or agreement to the provisions contained in it.

Among those provisions occurs this: “That the said shipper is at his own risk and expense, to load and take care of, and to feed and water said stock whilst being transported, and whether delayed' in transit or otherwise, and to unload the same, and neither said carrier nor any connecting carrier is to be under any liability or duty with reference thereto, except in the actual transportation of the same.” This bill of lading issued by the defendant shows upon its face that the hogs were shipped in a car marked “R. & W. 25362,” and also bore the initials “W. M.,” which ithe witness testified, indicated the routing of the shipment as being over the line of the Rorfolk and Western as far as Hagerstown, Maryland, where it was to be delivered to the Western Maryland Railroad as a connecting carrier, to complete the transportation to the point of ultimate determination. On the 27th of Rovember, 1908, there was issued by the Secretary of. Agriculture a notice of quarantine, inhibiting the shipment of cattle, sheep, other ruminants andl swine within certain specified territory, including the -State of Maryland. This quarantine restriction, executed and promulgated on -the 27-th of Rovember, 1908, and declared to be effective on and after that date, was unknown to Philip Grove, the agent of the defendant carrier at Antietam Sta- • tion until about 5 :45 P. M. on Rovember 28th, ¡the day the hogs were loaded, and some two hours after the hogs had- been actually placed on the car.

In the meantime Langdon, the shipper, had left- for his home, and apparently it was not until about nine o’clock that evening that he received notice of this quarantine-, and even then the agent, Grove, does not seem. to have -told the plaintiff positively that the hogs would be held up at Hagerstown, but said that they were liable to be held up at Hagerstown; and that he was not ²⁷¹ sure that they 'would he so held, that he did noit know hut that the quarantine might he raised. Whether the train containing the ear in which the hogs had been loaded, had then actually left Antietam Station, is not entirely clear, hut apparently it had noit. In this conversation over the telephone, Grove, the station agent, inquired what the plaintiff desired to have done with the hogs, to which he replied in substance that having delivered the hogs to the carrier, he had nothing more to do with them until they arrived in Baltimore, and did not care to know anything about them in the meantime. The hogs left Antietam Station, sometime .during the night of the 28th November, and according to John W. Eussell, ¡the conductor of the freight train which hauled them, they reached Hagerstown about 4:30 A. M. on the morning of the 29th.

Upon arrival there, the Western Maryland Bail-way Company refused to- receive the hogs, notwithstanding repeated endeavors upon the part of the agent of the N. & W. to turn them over, and the ground of the refusal of the connecting carrier was that the line of that road passed from Maryland into Pennsylvania, and then hack into Maryland, thus bringing the ear load of hogs within the terms of the quarantine. On the next day, November 30th, the hogs reached the Union Stock Yards at Hagerstown, and again the plaintiff was communicated with, to give some directions as to the disposition of the hogs: this communication was from two sources, a man by the name of Bolinger and one Macomb, both agents of the defendant. The exact date of the first of these conversations was either Monday, November 30, or Tuesday, December 1st; aud a second telephonic conversation was had between Macomb and the plaintiff on December 3rd, in which tbe plaintiff again declined to take charge of or give directions as to tho disposition of the hogs, saying that if was np to the railway company to (deliver them according to the contract contained in the hill of lading. ²⁷² The hogs having been thus unloaded at the stock yards in Hagerstown, were fed and held there from the 30th November until December 7th, when they were turned over by the manager of the stock yards acting under the directions of the agent of the defendant to one Henry Matthews, for sale, by whom they were subsequently sold at varying prices, less, however, than the market value of hogs in the City of Baltimore at that time, and subsequently the railway company offered to pay the plaintiff the net proceeds realized from such sales, which was declined, and the present action instituted. Some of the suggestions contained in the