Pennsylvania Railroad v. Clark

Stockbridge, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. The questions presented by this appeal are all raised by one bill of exceptions, reserved to the rulings of the trial Court upon the prayers. They involve the duty and liability of a common carrier, for injury to perishable freight, resulting from alleged delay in its transportation. Inasmuch as the first prayer of the defendant sought to withdraw the case from the consideration of the jury upon the ground of a failure of evidence to support a verdict for the plaintiff under the pleadings, a succinct statement of the case presented by the proof will tend to clarify the questions of law involved.

On the 16th of August, 3910, the plaintiff, who was a buyer and shipper of fruit, delivered to the Philadelphia, Baltimore and Washington Railroad Company, at Henderson, Maryland, some peaches, pears, canteloupes and apples for transportation over the line of that road and a connecting line, the Pennsylvania Railroad, to Jersey City. On the day following, the plaintiff made a like shipment of peaches, apples and plums. According to the evidence these shipments should have reached their destination soon after midnight on the days on which they were made. The evidence tends to show that prompt delivery was made in each case by the initial to the connecting carrier, but that the consignments did not reach their destination until sometime on tlie 18th of August, or from six to thirty hours late, and that when they did arrive decay had to some extent set in, so as to greatly impair their market value.

It is to recover for this lessened value that the present suit was brought. ⁵¹⁶ The defendant company does not attempt in any manner to controvert these facts, but seeks to excuse the delay and avoid any liability by showing that on the 16 th of August, the date of the first shipment, there was an exceptionally serious wreck on its line, in which some fifteen or more large, steel, coal cars of the Berwin & White Coal Mining Co. were demolished, the.railroad tracks torn up for some distance, approximately eight hundred tons of coal dumped on the tracks, or where the' tracks had been, and that all traffic at that point was stopped for a longer or shorter time until the wreckage could be cleared away, and a portion of the tracks relaid. The railroad company further gave evidence to show that it had used all possible expedition in clearing its tracks for traffic, and' forwarding the accumulation of freight. Evidence was also given for the purpose of showing that the wreck was caused by the breaking of an arch bar on one of the cars of the Berwin & White Coal Mining Co., and that this, breakage was due to a latent defect in the metal composing the arch bar, which, was not and could not have been detected by any of the customary examinations or inspections made of the cars by those employed for that purpose. The declaration filed by the plaintiff in instituting the action did not undertake to specify any particular act on the part of the defendant company as a reason for liability, but simply averred that the defendant neglected its duty,- and did not safely carry the said fruit, nor deliver the same to the consignees as it had agreed to do, “but by default of the defendant in the premises the value of the said goods was lost to the plaintiff.” The defendant pleaded non cul. and the case then proceeded to trial before a jury.

At the conclusion of the testimony the plaintiff offered three prayers, of which the third related to the measure of damages, and the defendant presented five, the. first of which has already been referred to. The trial Court granted all of the plaintiff’s prayers and refused all of those offered by the defendant. ⁵¹⁷ The first and second prayers of the plaintiff were as follows: Plaintiff’s First Prayer. The plaintiff prays the Court to instruct the jury that if it shall find from the evidence that the plaintiff shipped in good condition certain perishable fruit at Henderson, Md., on the line of the Philadelphia, Baltimore and Washington Eailroad Company, a common carrier on August 16th and 17th, 1910, consigned to Jersey City, and that the Philadelphia, Baltimore and Washington Eailroad Company delivered said fruit to the defendant as the delivering common carrier in order that the defendant might deliver said fruit at defendant’s terminal in Jersey City, the place of its destination, then if the jury find that either or both shipments of said fruit when delivered by the defendant at its destination was in a rotten and decayed condition, then the jury is instructed that the defendant is responsible for the inferior condition of the fruit so injured at the time of its delivery if the jury find that such condition was caused by delay in transportation by the defendant. Plaintiff’s Second Prayer.

The plaintiff prays the Court to instruct the jury that if it shall find the plaintiff delivered the fruit in the manner mentioned in the plaintiff’s first prayer, and if the jury shall further find that it was necessary for the receiving common carrier to forward said fruit over the line of the defendant in order that it might reach its destination; and if the jury shall find that the defendant, because of a serious wreck on its