51 Cal. App. 487 | Cal. Ct. App. | 1921
This is an appeal by the defendant from a judgment upon a verdict against it for $500 in an action in which the plaintiff sought to recover $931, the alleged value of a suitcase and contents left with the defendant in storage. Tho testimony showed that on or about November 15, 1918 (when it is alleged the suitcase was checked with the defendant), the plaintiff was an enlisted man in the United States navy. He claims to have checked his suitcase with the army and navy branch of the Y. M. C. A. at 266 Embarcadero, San Francisco, and this claim is sustained by his own testimony and by a paper check produced by him at the trial, bearing a number and, among other things, the printed words: ‘1 The article checked on this check is left with the Association at owner’s risk subject to storage rates and rules, and may be disposed of when storage is due six months. ’ ’ When plaintiff presented his cheek to secure the return of his suitcase it could not be found, and defendant refused to compensate plaintiff for the loss thereof. The suitcase, according to the testimony, was an “accordeon pleated” or extension leather suitcase, containing everything owned by the plaintiff and collected by him during several years of his foreign travels with the United States navy.
Defendant answered that it was a charitable corporation existing for the purpose of establishing and assisting Young Men’s Christian Associations, and to promote the spiritual, intellectual, physical, and moral well-being of young men in accordance with the aims and methods of Young Men’s Christian Associations, and that it was not organized and did not exist for the purpose of profit; that it maintained in San Francisco, a branch Young Men’s Christian Association for enlisted men of the army and navy of the United States, generally known as the “Army and Navy Young Men’s Christian Association”; that it employed various clerks and employees to manage and control said branch association; that defendant used due diligence in the selection of those said clerks and employees, to see that each of them was honest and competent to perform his respective duties; denied any knowledge of plaintiff’s ever having had or checked the suitcase and contents with defendant as alleged, and on that ground denied that plaintiff delivered said suitcase and contents to
At the close of the testimony, counsel requested the court to direct a verdict for the defendant upon the ground that the facts bring the case within the operation of the rule laid down in the case of Thomas v. German General Ben. Society, 168 Cal. 188, [141 Pac. 1186], which is stated to be: Where one accepts the benefit of a public or a private charity, he exempts by implied contract the benefactor from liability for the negligence of its servants in administering the charity, if the benefactor has used due care in the selection of its servants. The motion was made upon the further ground that it appears without .conflict that plaintiff received from the defendant at the time of the alleged deposit of said suitcase and contents a tag bearing in plain writing the statement, “The article cheeked on this check is left with the Association at owner’s risk ... that he had plenty opportunity to take note of such statement, and it was his duty to do so, and he is presumed to have done so, no evidence to the contrary being offered or admissible; and that plaintiff is held, therefore, to have assented and agreed to the terms and conditions of said printed statement.
With reference to the first ground of this motion, appellant contends that the facts proven establish, as a matter of law, the claim that the defendant was a “charitable corporation” within the language of the decisions defining such corporations. In this wc are inclined to agree with the appellant. Furthermore, plaintiff, in availing himself
A great number of contracts are made by the delivery by one of the contracting parties to the other of a document in a common form, stating the terms by which the person delivering it will enter into the proposed contract. If the form is accepted without objection by the person to whom it is tendered, this person is, as a general rule, bound by its contents, and his act amounts to an acceptance of the offer made to him, regardless of whether he reads the document, or otherwise informs himself of its contents. There is no testimony that plaintiff did not read this receipt and have actual knowledge of its contents. He testified that he “accepted the check and then went out of the building.”
Defendant’s motion should have been granted, then, upon the ground that the plaintiff had by express contract released the defendant from all liability for the loss of his suitcase. Whether as a matter of public policy the defendant would be permitted to expressly contract to be released from the consequences of its own negligence is not involved in the present case, because there is no evidence in the record of any negligence on the part of the defendant.
The judgment is reversed.
Nourse, J., and Sturtevant, J., concurred.