43 Pa. Super. 276 | Pa. Super. Ct. | 1910
Opinion by
The defendant received from the plaintiffs twenty-eight horses to be transported from Zanesville, Ohio, to Oxford, Pa., in one of the defendant’s cars. When the car arrived at Oxford three of the horses were found to have been injured, two of them so severely that one of them died soon after it was taken from the car and the other was shot. The third was disabled for a long time and sold for much less than its "value before the injury. The uncontradicted testimony shows that the horses were in good condition when they were placed in the car at the point of shipment. There was no direct evidence of collision, derailment or other violent injury to the car, and the appellant therefore contends that there was not any evidence to charge the defendant with negligence. The case of Penna. R. R. Co. v. Raiordon, 119 Pa. 577, is cited as a case which rules the question., That action arose out of the shipment of a number of horses one of which was dead when the car arrived at its destination. The controlling fact in that case, which induced the decision of the court was that there was no evidence to show what was the cause of the death of the horse. No attempt was made to prove that he died from an injury resulting from a negligent act of the defendant’s servants in moving the train or handling the car. The plaintiff was in charge of the horses during the shipment; nothing was shown as to the defendant’s failure to perform any duty in the means of transportation and the plaintiff was unable to assign any cause for the death of the horse. Under these circumstances the court held that the plaintiff was not en
The appellant further contends that the transportation of the horses involved interstate commerce; that the contract of carriage contained a stipulation limiting the liability of the carrier in case of injury and that since the enactment by congress of the act of June 29, 1906, 34 Statutes at Large, 584, the right of a carrier to limit his liability for negligence is a question to be determined according to the law as interpreted by the federal courts, and that the decision of' the supreme court of the United States in Penna. R. R. Co. v. Hughes, 191 U. S. 477, is not conclusive. This subject was presented for our consideration in Wright v. Adams Express Co., ante, p. 40, in which case an opinion was this day delivered. Our conclusion in that case was that the act of congress referred to did not affect the subject of the measure of damages in an action in Pennsylvania against a common carrier for negligence; that the particular subject was not legislated upon and that without such legislative action the rule in Pennsylvania remains unchanged.
The assignments are overruled and the judgment affirmed.