113 Ga. 1102 | Ga. | 1901
In March, 1895, E. E. Bruhl, the plaintiff, a merchant in Macon, received an order for jewels to be sent by express, purporting to have been written at Swainsboro, and signed “ J. O. Coleman, per W. H. C.” He sent the goods by express, in a package addressed to J. C. Coleman, who was a responsible merchant in Swainsboro. The nearest express office to this destination was Midville, from which station ran the Midville, Swainsboro & Red Bluff Railroad to Swainsboro. The express agent at Midville had a standing order from J. C. Coleman to deliver all express matter’ addressed to him to the conductor of such railroad. This package was so delivered, and was by the conductor carried to Swainsboro and placed in the custody of the railroad-depot agent, the railroad company, as was its usual custom, receiving a charge for carrying
Under these facts, the granting of a nonsuit was erroneous. In Southern Express Co. v. Williams, 99 Ga. 482, it was held, in effect, that the order given to the express Company by Coleman made the railroad company his agent to receive for him, at Midville, all express matter addressed to him, and that a delivery of such matter by the express company to the railroad company, made in pursuance of such order, was a good delivery to him. Mr. Justice Atkinson in delivering the opinion said that “ the goods were delivered in accordance with the direction of the consignor to the consignee, by and through the duly appointed agent of the latter, who was fully authorized-to receive them. Having discharged its [the express company’s] full duty toward the consignor, it can make no difference that, subsequently to the time the goods went into the hands of the duly accredited agent of the consignee, they were by him negligently delivered to a person, other than the consignee, who was not entitled to receive them.” It was accordingly held that the express company was not liable to the consignor. The rulings' made in that case were, upon a review thereof, in Bruhl v. Southern Express Co., 103 Ga. 583, adhered to and approved. It follows, therefore, in the present case, that when the express company, in pursuance of the order of the defendant Coleman, the real consignee, delivered the package of jewelry to his agent, the railroad
Judgment reversed.